


Haunted by the Past - A Striking at Shadows Story

by enloeddmedia



Series: Striking at Shadows and Related Stories [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bullying, Explicit Language, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mother-Son Relationship, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22941517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enloeddmedia/pseuds/enloeddmedia
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Benny Solo has been acting up during their stay on Chandrila. What Finn and Rey see as a growing problem, Ben Solo sees as just normal teen behavior. After all, Benny is such a better kid than Ben was at that age. But as Benny's past trauma comes to haunt him, his growing powers become a weapon that could devastate their lives. What will it take to force Ben out of his denial before it's too late?
Relationships: Finn/Original Character(s), Rey/Ben Solo
Series: Striking at Shadows and Related Stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656109
Comments: 9
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story follows "Striking at Shadows" (prior to the epilogue.) If you haven't read that story yet, you can continue with this one but there will be many references that will be confusing. But if you're not up to sitting down for that long piece (LOL) here's a brief summary of what you need to know for this story (PS major spoilers for Striking at Shadows as well as Rise of Skywalker): 
> 
> Ben Solo returned from the World Between Worlds twelve years later to find he had a son born of the life force he transferred to Rey. Finn took over the role as young Benny's father, and upon Ben's return, he and Finn agreed to share the role of father for him. A reincarnated, demonic version of Kylo Ren had kidnapped their son and was using the boy to force Rey and Ben to use their Force powers which would enable Kylo to drain them and force them to the Dark Side. When Ben and Rey proved to be too strong to succumb to Kylo, he took their son to Mustafar and thrust him into lava in order to break the parents' spirits and weaken them. Ben's son with Nara in the WBW was used to contain Benny's spirit until his body could be rebuilt, which it was by the time of Rey and Ben's wedding. (Things get even crazier than that! Go read Striking at Shadows!)
> 
> Trigger Warnings for PTSD and Bullying. In regards to PTSD, flashbacks are portrayed rather strongly in this story, and this work in no way constitutes the only way that PTSD is experienced. There is also reference to school violence in regards to the bullying, and while there is justifiable anger at the bullies in this story, it in no way advocates violence or retaliation. 
> 
> Strong language is used throughout, and the adults have far worse mouths than the kids...

_Year 50ABY, Two and a Half Years after Ben and Rey Solo’s Wedding_

Ben Solo gazed at the waves of the Silver Sea curling and crashing onto the shore. It always brought back memories of his childhood. Of all the planets he visited, nothing could compare to that special tang of the air, heavy with seaweed and crustacean shell. When the wind blew in from the north, the sea air mixed with fresh fried _poppettes_ and thin-shaved meat sandwiches from the amusement pier off in the distance.

They hadn’t planned to stay that long on Chandrila after little Leia was born, but the past two years had been a nice break for the adults and opportunity for the kids. Leia had access to the best medical care at all hours, no waiting until the next planet would arrive. As for Benny, the idea was that he would get to spend time with teens his age.

Unfortunately, he spent most of his time sulking in his room.

 _Teen years suck_. Ben didn’t miss those. Benny was fourteen, and while Ben had already been sent to Luke’s school by then, he still found it a terrible time to deal with others his age, not to mention the raging hormones. The only time Benny seemed comfortable was in their daily training practice.

“Here Daddy,” Leia said at his feet. Her dark brown hair in two dangling pigtails, she looked up with an angel smile amidst two chubby cheeks. In her hand was a curled seashell.

Ben put his hand out. “Oh, thank you.” He kept his hand low and thanked her for the ten more she placed in there.

“Now dance!”

“Okay.” Ben lifted the shells on the Force and spun them in the air, tipping them as they moved along their route. Leia laughed and jumped up and down. Ben smiled. That child did nothing but warm his heart every time he looked at her. Even when she screamed her head off, he couldn’t resist that face. “Alright, ready? Going to make them fly?”

“Fly! Fly!”

“You know what to do.”

Leia sprung up, her hands spread in the air. Her little blast of the Force sent the shells scattering over the beach. She jumped up and down, laughing, and scrambled to find them again. They had spent most of the morning doing just this.

Ben didn’t mind. Sure it could get mind-numbingly repetitive at times, but he was grateful for the experience, to watch his little girl grow, something he missed with Benny.

Speaking of, the boy would be home soon from his morning classes. Then training, lunch, afternoon classes, training again with the larger group, then dinner. If the weather held up, he’d go on an evening run with Rey and Benny while Tarn and Jorn (who didn’t care for beach running) looked after Leia. Sometimes Finn and Sona would join them, maybe even Poe if he wasn’t somewhere with his pants off.

Some would have called it all a quiet, boring routine, not the life fit for Force-warriors and war heroes. But this was just a waystation, a temporary stop, a time to grow, build their foundation as a family, and prepare for the adventures to come. Besides, after years of hard living, Ben was enjoying the break.

Mornings were the quietest. Rey was off at her job at the Starship depot just until lunch. She said it was just for the credits (his mother’s old credit account wouldn’t last them forever) but he knew she enjoyed figuring things out, getting messy up to her arms in ship components. Finn, Sona, and Poe all took jobs training Chandrila’s new soldiers and pilots. Tarn and Jorn were always doing something different, odds and ends jobs they didn’t talk much about, but they paid their share of the rent for the beachhouse they all kept together, so Ben didn’t care what they did.

As for Ben?

Besides being on Leia duty (they had droids for household duties, but no child of his would ever be raised by one,) he never got quite the welcome back to Chandrila he’d hoped for. While they didn’t exactly hate him anymore, he wasn’t high on the trust scale. No one would hire him.

Rarely he got to lecture on piloting skills and military strategy, small paying gigs but paying, nonetheless. But everyone in the audience looked like they were prepared to run for their lives if necessary. It got tiresome.

Apparently he had _some_ use to his home planet. The Galactic Senate would occasionally bring him in to analyze data and footage regarding any First Order resurgence. So far his expertise had prevented four hostile takeovers of planets in the near regions.

Ben looked up at the sky. The call back to space grew stronger every day. Maybe they’d spend another year or two on Chandrila, but then it would be time to move on, get back to his destiny with his family and crew.

“You guys chucking shells again?” Benny said from back by the house.

Ben turned. “School let out early?”

“Last period teacher puked.”

Ben flinched. “What?”

“She got sick, no sub available last minute, they sent us home.” Benny used the Force to lift a shell into his hand and chucked it well over their heads. Leia squealed and chased after it. “Bored there anyway.”

“You should learn the history of your homeworld.”

“Uh, _your_ homeworld? I was born on Coruscant, remember?”

“I thought that class taught most of the major planets in the Republic?”

“Still boring! Who cares what these people did.” He chucked another shell. “Doesn’t help me any.”

“I hope you don’t think that way about Force studies.”

“ _That_ is at least of use to me. Just so bored of the same old crap. I wanna like, move mountains—no! Make mountains! Can I do that?”

“Not something I had a use for, I don’t know.”

Benny waved his fingers, imagining. “Then carve a castle out of the stone right on top, look down on the stupid people and just like, cast lightning across the sky, watch them tremble. Let them call me an insufferable asshole then.”

Ben looked down (but not far down) at his son. These were words Ben knew well. He had said similar when he was a grumpy teen. And then came the admonitions: _Control yourself! Control the darkness! Control your urges. You don’t really want that. Let go of your emotions and attachments._ Blah blah blah. “Kids starting with you again?”

Benny chucked a shell so hard Leia lost track of it in the sky. “They hear Solo and think of you. Then I got kids calling me Kylo Ben and Dork Vader.”

Ben snorted, trying not to laugh.

Benny crossed his arms. “It’s not funny! Especially Kylo. I hate that fucking name…”

Rey and Finn were always on Benny’s case about his foul mouth, but Ben didn’t bother. He was no better, and he’d rather the kid express himself than keep it in. Ben just made him promise not to do it in front of his mother and the others.

“I’m just so tired of being so powerful yet powerless against _them_. Hate being powerless, fucking hate it. They treat me like I’m some evil monster and I never even did anything to them. Makes me just want to show them what a monster can do and maybe they’ll shut up.”

“Then take that frustration into our training, not out on other people. They’re young, they’re dumb. They’re just going to grow up and argue like every typical Chandrilian while you will be out in the galaxy using the Force to kick ass and set people free. Then you’ll see real people, those who have been through hell and are grateful that you were there to help them. And they won’t call you a monster or make fun of you. And then you’ll look back on these jerks and realize how meaningless they are.” He put his hand on Benny’s shoulder. “It hurts to be cast out, made fun of, treated like shit. But you have to define the type of man you will be: one who wastes his energy punishing stupid people, or one who uses his energy to make this galaxy a better place. That’s a choice you have to make. Until then, if you’re angry and hurt, we’ll work that off in training.”

Benny said nothing, as he usually did when he got sage advice from his father. But he slipped close, leaned in, and put his head on Ben’s chest. Ben wrapped an arm around his smaller replica, then gave him a quick kiss on the head.

“Dad!”

“No one saw!”

“You don’t know that!”

“Nor do I care!”

“I do!”

Ben growled and pulled Benny into a full hug. The kid didn’t protest. Then Ben’s comm link went off. He tapped the band on his wrist to activate the projected display. “Senate, great.” He tapped the glowing green dot to answer the call. “Ben Solo.”

“Can you come in right away to check something? If it’s what we fear it is, we may only have minutes to act.”

 _Shit._ “I’ll be right there.” He turned to Benny. “Mom’s coming home in about an hour, can you watch Leia?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Make sure she doesn’t eat any rocks.”

“Why would I let her eat rocks?”

“She’s sneaky—you have to watch—I didn’t—just keep an eye out for that, okay?”

Benny snorted into laughter. “I’m surprised Mom let you live after that.”

“Lucky for me, I’m not killed that easily. I gotta go.”

#

Crisis averted, Ben decided NOT to teleport back from the senate building and drain the other half of his energy. Only wished he knew the issue wasn’t as urgent as they suspected so he didn’t waste the energy in the first place.

Nearing noon, he decided to pass by the starship depot. He waited by the entrance and closed his eyes. _Care to walk me home? I’m all alone and scared in this big city._

 _You giant goof,_ came the reply from Rey. _I’ll be right there, just cleaning up._

A few minutes later, Rey jogged to the gate, bright smile on her face.

Ben kissed her and wiped the smudge of grease off her cheek. “Had to make a quick stop at the senate. They were panicking again.”

Rey looked around. “Where’s Leia?”

“At home with Benny. He got out early.”

Her smile faded as she started to walk. “You left her with Benny?”

“Yeah, why?”

Rey remained silent, her steps picking up in speed.

“Rey? What’s wrong?”

“Ben I…you should have asked me first.”

Ben frowned in confusion. “Why? He’s watched her before.”

“He’s…he’s not himself lately.”

Ben widened his steps to catch up with her. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just…” She pushed out a breath. “I’m not sure we can trust him with her right now.”

Ben’s heart jumped in two directions at once, concern for Leia and defensive of Benny. “What the hell are you talking about?” He put a hand out to stop her. “Just take two seconds and tell me what’s going on.”

Rey shook her head. “You don’t see it? How he is lately? Getting morbid and sassy—”

“Like every teen ever—”

“Except they don’t have Force abilities going way out of control. I just…I’d feel better if one of us were around to supervise with him. He’s getting strong Ben, really strong, and he doesn’t always have control of it. Leia is so little, I don’t want her getting hurt.”

Ben looked down at her, and he didn’t like this feeling that came crawling up. He’d never had it with Rey and didn’t care for it now. “Are you afraid of him?”

“I’m not afraid _of_ him, I’m afraid _for_ him. That he may do something without realizing it, something he may regret.”

Rey might as well have been punching him in the gut. A sick, creeping feeling snaked its way through his veins. “So what’s next? You want to send him away to some school and make it their problem? Never see him again?”

Fire lit in Rey’s eyes. “Why the hell would you ever think that? Why would you ever say such a thing?!”

“Because I heard the same shit when I was a kid, and I’m not going to put Benny through that—”

“No one is sending him anywhere! Damnit Ben, after what happened with Kylo? Losing him? You think I would ever send him away?”

“Well what the hell am I supposed to think? You’re telling me you don’t trust him.”

“That is not at all—”

“Yeah, it is! Just like me, no one trusted me to—to cast off whatever visions and expectations and be the good person I was inside, and now you’re doing to Benny!”

Rey walked off, moving faster than before. “That is not at all what I am saying or thinking. He is a good and loving kid and he always will be, I am not worried about that, and I want to throttle you for ever thinking it!”

Ben clenched his teeth. This was the first real fight they had since they had gotten together, not counting the diaper incident. But this situation felt all too familiar in a sickening way, and he wasn’t going to let anyone turn Benny into what Ben had become when people lost faith in him.

Ben jogged to catch up. She stopped well before the waiting area for the transport and put her finger up toward him. “Listen and listen good, Ben. I said I was concerned, not distrusting of him or scared of him. I love that boy with every inch of my heart, and I’m not stupid enough to do to him what was done to you. I know better. But you have to start opening your eyes and see what we’ve all been seeing.”

“And what’s that?”

“His lack of control. His aggressiveness in training. He gets competitive which is fine but then he gets frustrated and slips and he needs to learn to manage his Force powers now.”

Ben threw his hands up. “I’ve never seen Benny doing anything wrong.”

Rey nodded. “Maybe you can’t see it, because he’s so much like you.”

Ben squinted. What if she was right about this? What if what he thought was normal teenage responses and actions were actually a problem, but he never would have known because of the hellion he was at that age?

Rey softened, took his hands. “Ben, you know I only say these things out of love, for both our children.”

“Benny would never hurt her. He loves her. He plays with her and teaches her, he’s so damn patient with her—”

“I know. Now what would happen if he accidentally hurt her because he didn’t manage his powers properly? How would he feel?”

Ben looked away. “Fuck…”

“I know he’s a teen, and he’s grumpy and sullen because of it—”

“It’s that damn school we send him to. Those kids treat him like garbage instead of the prince that he is. Maybe if he didn’t have to go there, he wouldn’t be so—”

“Ben, stop avoiding the truth. He has to learn and learn now. He’s not just carrying Skywalker blood like you. He’s a Skywalker/Palpatine/Pace. If he let loose with his entire capacity, what would happen?”

The thought made Ben’s stomach ill. The thought of broaching the subject with him made it even worse. He remembered how he felt when he heard the conversations not meant for his ears, how he was getting too strong and acting like his grandfather, already walking the path of darkness, how he had to be saved before it was too late, before he turned into something worse than the Darth Vader of legend, not that he knew his lineage at that time.

Benny was a sweet kid. He didn’t deserve to hear those things, feel like that.

“Ben,” Rey said, “you have to figure something out with him. My powers erupted late, I never went through the worst of the teen years carrying that load, you did. You need to help him through this. You’re the only one that really can.”

Ben gave a huff of a laugh. “And what did I learn during that time? Suppress it? Avoid it? Fill yourself with light? Meditate some more? I wouldn’t be any better at this than you would.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You and him are so similar—what would you do if you had to help your younger self? What would you say to him? Do with him? What would have helped you get through it? That’s what you have to ask yourself and figure out for him.” Rey shook her head. “No one else can do it like you can, Ben.”

Ben closed his eyes, shook his head. “And if I fuck it up? What then?”

“Then he has a whole family on his side. All of us, together, will make sure he doesn’t turn into another Kylo. But of all of us, you’re the one that can reach him the most when it comes to this.”

#

Ben and Rey entered the beach house only to find it empty. Ben’s stomach tensed. He knew it shouldn’t. He trusted Benny, and if anything had happened, he would have felt it on the Force. Why did Rey have to stick ideas in his head? The kids would be fine.

Ben and Rey walked out the back door and into the sand. Still no kids. Ben sprung up the steps of the dune, Rey on his tail, and skirted down the other side. There, still on the beach, were Benny and Leia, the elder brother wearing a proud, sweet smile.

He turned toward them, and Ben felt smug seeing their smiling son. So much for Rey’s worries about him being aggressive and sullen. His mop of black hair fluttered in the wind while seashells danced and spun above Leia’s head.

“Mom, Dad, check it out. Look what Leia can do.”

Rey flinched. “Leia? Benny, that’s got to be you.”

Benny shook his head, looking so sweet and warm, Ben wondered why Rey had to bring up that mess at all. “I showed her how, got her to feel the Force and move it how she wanted. Look—Leia, what do you want the shells to do next?”

The little girl waved her hand. “Starship!” The shells cast off in a direct line and whipped into a curve.

Rey put her hands to her mouth. “Leia! Look what you can do! I’m so proud of you.” She scooped up the giggling little girl.

Ben put his arm around Benny’s shoulders when the boy stood. “And you taught her how to do that, huh?”

Benny shrugged. “Not hard, really. You just got to reach in and touch someone on the Force, where they can understand it.”

“Huh, where’d you learn to do that?”

Benny looked at him. “You’ve done that with me plenty.”

“Yeah, but how’d _you_ learn to do it yourself?”

Benny shrugged against and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Just figured it out.”

Ben smiled and tousled his hair. “That’s why I’m always so proud of you.”

Rey needed to calm down. Benny was doing just fine.

#

Benny

“Ben? Would you like to stand and read your poem next?”

Benny stood in his classroom the next day like a tightly coiled spring ready to snap. Being the center of attention among kids who didn’t like him was hard enough. Sharing this piece was a nightmare.

The poem was supposed to be personal, in whatever form, but something that meant everything at that moment in your life. No matter what else he tried to write, it always came back to this, the one thing that continued to haunt him and grew stronger every day.

He projected the words from his wrist comm and didn’t look at anyone as he read:

Lost, alone, except with my worst nightmare.

Eyes my own, reflected back to me.

My father’s eyes,

Who had gone before mine had opened.

But this is not my father.

An empty shadow come to life.

He takes everything,

I am an empty husk,

Bait, a lure to the

Heroes of the galaxy.

Nothing more than bait.

Eyes my own, reflected back to me,

He delivers pain and torment,

No one will come for me,

If they do, all worlds end.

No hope for me.

Standing, drained,

An empty husk,

I will not be saved.

I can only be bait.

Flash and then I fall,

Flames scream into my eyes,

Fire wraps itself around me,

Consumes all.

Pain is endless.

Seeping into the magma,

It is not over fast.

I will never forget the pain.

I will never forget the fire.

Flames will always scream

Terror in my soul.

Eyes open, I am a child again.

Twin Suns, we share a body,

Quiet voice for my tormented soul.

Eyes, my own, reflected back to me,

This time he is love and hope.

Arms wrap around me,

Heals all.

Love is endless.

He has returned from the dead

As have I.

I am finally safe and loved,

But mostly understood,

Reflected in

My father’s eyes.

Benny looked up. The teacher, broad smile on her face, clapped with enthusiasm. The class followed suit with much less, but Benny didn’t care. It wasn’t for them, anyway.

The teacher clasped her hands together. “That was incredible, Ben! Hopeful as well as terrifying, a masterpiece of horror and hope. Your use of metaphor, the fire and the magma, impeccable. You have such a talent for the written word. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Ben.”

Ben actually smiled for once in school. “Thank you.” He sat back down but felt like he could feel the stares of all in the class, judging and snubbing. Maybe this was a bad idea. He should have just talked about flying through space or the Force or something. This was way too vulnerable a piece. At least he’d get a good grade out of it.

Metaphor, if only she knew…


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benny's attitude and anger heat up while Ben tries to figure out how best to handle his son.

“Rules of engagement,” Ben said, drawing a large circle in the sand with a cane practice saber, “any body part out of the circle loses, no Force. This is strict saber combat. You must rely on your physical prowess only.”

Benny groaned to the sky. “This is so stupid. I can use the Force any time I want, why do I have to limit myself?”

Ben reached the start of the circle. “Because those are the rules of this training session, end of story. The Force comes easy to you, let’s try something that requires a lot more effort on your part.”

Benny looked over to Rey training Finn. “ _He_ gets to use the Force.”

“ _He_ trained in strict combat for his entire life until he met your mother. Besides, his Force flow is like a cup. Yours is a lake. He needs to expand, you need to hone, but that’s irrelevant, because I’m your teacher right now and my rules are the only rules.”

Benny snorted and rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He reeled as something invisible ponked him in the head. “Dad! The hell?!”

“Your uncle did that to me when I acted the same way.” Ben grinned and slipped into his stance, bare feet digging into the sand. “You want to fight like me, this is how it’s done. Come at me.”

Benny cocked his head back, arrogant little booger, but Ben loved it. Benny bent at the knees, lowering his stance—good, excellent center of gravity. Ben’s eyes shifted toward Finn for a second. Still that one with his stiff stances, center way too high. At least Benny listened to him.

Benny’s hand rested outside the hilt of the cane saber in his belt. Eyes locked. Silence. Benny struck out but came in too straight. Ben dipped to the side and pivoted as Benny sailed past him. Ben lightly struck his son’s rear with the cane. Benny twirled in low with fury on his face, lips sucked in, flames in his eyes. Ben dipped and avoided most of the strikes, parried a few, still didn’t have to block just yet.

“You’re trying too hard to hit me, and I still haven’t moved from this one spot.”

Benny flew in with an overhead strike. “Your feet moved!”

Ben pivoted, letting the kid sail by, and kept the momentum going with a push to his back and a hook to his foot. “Yes, but I’m still right here in this one circle. You okay?”

Benny rolled out of the sand and spit some out. “Shut up!”

“What have I told you? Open yourself, take your mind off the goal, and let it flow naturally.”

Benny leapt to his feet, saber at the ready, shoulders heaving with his heated breaths. He struck out again, this time wide with matching stance, fast footwork, using the entire length of his body in his attack. Now things were ramping up. Benny dominated the circle, and it forced Ben to block. Good. He was getting it.

And here he was getting cocky again. Was Ben this much of a pain in the ass when Luke was training him? Probably. Maybe worse. Benny’s focus on winning made him lose track of the battle at hand. Ben gave him a light whack to the leg, knocked the kid’s cane out of his hand, and sent the boy tumbling into the sand again.

“You were doing good there,” Ben said, “you’ve got to stop—” A wave of Force pushed him back, and he countered, blocking and overpowering it. “Hey! What did I say? No Force for this one. Knock it off.”

Benny stopped, bitter snarl on his face, and used the Force again to retrieve his cane. Ben wasn’t sure if he should wallop the boy again for that, but he let it go this time.

Benny charged at him again. Good, back to the footwork, the speed, dipping, diving, pivoting. Finally, the kid was picking it up again. Hard, fast strikes, Ben almost tipped out of the ring for a moment there. And now the kid was back to his arrogance after the near win, sloppy strikes, bad center of gravity. Ben locked the boy’s arm after a strike and flung him to the ground. Benny almost rolled out of the ring.

With a roar, Benny leapt back up and flung a blast of Force at Ben again. Ben caught it and flung it back, knocking Benny dangerously close to the edge of the ring. “What did I just tell you! One more time and we’re done, you lose automatically.”

Benny flew in with the sloppy strikes again. This kid was really off his game today, lately it seemed. Maybe something _was_ going on with him. Now he came in hard and fast again, nice pivoting, good parry. Ben stumbled out of a maneuver and slid, his foot almost reaching the ring. As he tensed his muscles to spring back in again, Benny ran in with an overhead strike. He should have known better.

Ben slid toward Benny, caught his legs, and because the kid’s center of gravity was too high, he sailed out of the ring, rolling into the sand.

Ben stood and extended his hand. “That’s game, buddy. Watch that center of gravity, and don’t assume if your opponent is down that they—”

Benny sprung back up with a scream and came at Ben. _Not this again…_ Ben blocked hard enough to whack the cane out of the boy’s hand. With a growl, Benny snapped it back into his hands and charged again.

Ben blocked three more times. “Benny, enough. It’s over.”

Teeth clenched, Benny spun at him in a rage. “I’m not losing again!”

Ben hooked his arm and flattened him. “It’s already over. You try again tomorrow.”

Benny flipped himself back onto his feet and continued the barrage. Rey and Finn stopped their training to see if they should intervene. Sona, Tarn, and Jorn stopped and stared also, while Poe downed half a drink as if this was the norm, and lately it was.

“Enough!” Ben said, but Benny refused to quit. With rolling eyes, Ben tossed his cane, grabbed the next incoming strike at Benny’s forearms, twisted the cane away, and flung the teen back out of the ring. Yet again, here he came, rolling in to grab his weapon. Instead of another strike, a blast of Force knocked Ben a few steps until he had the sense to counter—and counter he did.

He lifted Benny up into the air, flipped him upside down, and bounced him a few times. “You gonna knock it off now?”

“Put me down!”

“I’m going to put you right down into the sea if you don’t cool off, maybe the water will do it for you.”

“I said put me down!”

“You going to stop?”

Benny let out a defiantly incoherent cry which may or may not have been laced with obscenities.

Ben shrugged and sent Benny sailing toward the ocean.

“Alright-alright-alright-alright! I’ll stop!”

Ben started pulling him back. “You sure you don’t need help to cool off?”

“…I’ll stop.”

Ben lowered Benny to the ground and crossed his arms. “You lost fair and square because you’re forgetting some of the basic tenets of combat, and this little show after? This needs to not happen anymore.”

Benny, hands still gripping the cane, swung it once in the air, stiff and angry. “I’m tired of this stupid training cane crap, that’s the problem! I want to start using the real lightsaber!”

Ben drew his cane back to his hand. “You don’t get these basics right, you don’t get to use the real stuff. Now come on, training’s done for the night.”

“I want to move on! I’m tired of this baby crap!”

Ben pointed the cane at him. “Then stop acting like one. You know what you’re supposed to be doing, but I see you all over the place, more focused on winning than doing it right. Show me you’re ready by your actions, not your anger.”

Benny glared at him. Then he turned with a roar and slammed his cane into the sand, into a bush, a few good hard whacks on a storage container, then he took his screaming rage to the dune and let loose there before throwing his cane and storming inside. Ben heaved in a breath and looked up at the sky, begging the stars for patience in raising a teen boy prominent in the Force.

When he tipped his head back down, everyone was staring at him. “ _What?_ ”

Poe snorted and smiled. “Like looking into a mirror, huh?”

Ben flashed him a scowl, but it was Rey that was boring into him.

She put her hand on her hip. “Do you see it now?”

Ben shrugged it off. “Giant shock, he has a temper. At least he took it out on the sand and not a person.”

“Ben…”

He growled in frustration. “He’s a teen boy, you can’t expect him to be perfect all the time.”

Finn pointed to the tossed cane saber. “Nor should we be expecting this kind of behavior. We need to get a handle on him before it gets serious.”

Ben stuck his hand out, allowing the cane to snap into it. “I think you guys are worried over nothing. He’s a good kid. Wish I was half as good as this kid when I was his age.”

Rey sighed. “Of course he’s a good kid, he always will be. But he’s getting stronger and angrier, and he has to learn to channel it properly before it’s too late.”

“Ben,” Finn said, “you need to stop trying to be his friend and be his father. We need a united front on this.”

Ben turned his back, heading toward the house. “I’m not trying to be his friend. I just give him something you can’t.”

Finn crossed his arms and huffed in challenge. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“Understanding.”

#

Ben made his seashells dive in and out of Leia’s twirling shell ring, making the little girl giggle and scream, “Again!” Whatever Benny did, he unlocked something in her. Ever since that day she had shells, toys, food, just about everything flying. Controlled, though, always controlled. Leia didn’t fling or throw. Every act was deliberate, fascinating for a two-year-old.

Rey had told him the Millennium Falcon and the Stormrunner were both nearly trashed inside from Benny’s flinging.

There was so much of himself in that kid. _Guess when you go sticking your life force in someone, that’s what happens._ That’s what was making it hard to see Rey’s point of view on Benny. Sure he was angrier and more impatient than before, distracted, mouthy. But every single time, Ben saw himself in the kid. Not just himself, but a version of himself that had a chance. He was a kid surrounded by people who loved and believed in him. This kid wouldn’t turn into a monster.

Ben turned at the sound of footsteps. It was mid-morning, and the source surprised him. “Benny? Teacher puking again?”

Benny glanced at him and went inside. That was unusual. Even in Benny’s worst of moods, he at least had a few swear words to share on the topic.

Ben expanded his consciousness to see if he could pick up what was going on. The result gave him a jolt to the chest. Benny was a maelstrom of emotions seeping into the Force around him.

Ben extended a hand to Leia. “Come on sweetie, let’s go inside for now. I have to talk to Benny.”

Ben signaled at the closed sliding door to Benny’s room. No answer. “Benny? It’s Dad, what’s going on?”

“…Nothing.”

“Benny, you’re kicking around the Force like there’s no tomorrow, now before your mother picks up on it, why don’t you tell _me_ what’s going on?”

The door slid open. Benny sat at the edge of his bed, coiled in on himself, arms pressing against his stomach.

Ben sat down next to him and nudged him with his arm. “What’s the matter, Benny? What happened?”

Ben’s comm lit up, a call from the school. He knew he should answer it, but Benny needed him more. He let it go and looked at his son. “Benny?”

Benny tried to smile, a crinkled line laced with pain and fear. “I…solved my problem. I don’t have to go back to school anymore.”

Dread tied Ben’s stomach into a jumble of fifty knots. “And why’s that?”

Benny’s chin quivered.

#

Benny

Benny was always early to his language arts class. It was one of the few classes he enjoyed. Words were like puzzles: if you fit them together just right, you opened the path to something powerful and new.

Unfortunately the jerks, which constituted half the class, were also early. While Ben tried to read, they snickered and made a racket behind him. He was getting so tired of their crap. He wished he could just go back up into space again, go back to the way things were. Most of this stuff could be taught in computer modules, anyway. As for the collaborative stuff, he didn’t care to collaborate. He had the team of the Redemption and didn’t need anything else.

“Hey Kylo Ben!”

Benny dug his fingers into the desk and shoved down the growling bile that crept into his stomach. They thought they were being funny or just teasing. They had no idea every time they said that name, Benny would see that cruel bastard in his mind’s eye as if the monster was standing right in front of him. He would be taken back to the time of his kidnapping—terror, rage, and hopelessness just as fresh as it was then. Those feelings never subsided, never went away. He had spent the past few years trying to forget it all, and now these idiots brought it up every day.

He didn’t want to tell them how horrible it felt to be reminded of the beatings, the chokings, brought within inches of his life on an almost daily basis if he didn’t comply with becoming everything he hated, screaming in agony as his insides burned, bones feeling like they were shattering, muscles ripping themselves apart while his mother screamed and cried and begged Kylo to stop, all the while Benny knowing she couldn’t give in, that the galaxy needed her not to give in. They’d never know the continuous torment of feeling his body grow at an accelerated pace, sometimes not at the same time, bones moving faster than the muscles, straining and pulling, tendons sometimes tearing when they couldn’t keep up with the changes.

He never really talked about it to anyone, didn’t want to. He wanted to forget it all, just move on. But these idiots at this stupid school, they just would not let up, and Benny could do nothing to stop it.

His mother had screamed at the principal, screamed at the teachers, she may have even had some words with some of the parents if she knew them. That’s what Benny heard anyway, picked up with his own ears or on the Force while his mom never knew he could sense it. They were all trying to do the _right_ thing to stop it, but the torment always continued.

What was worse was hearing Kylo in his head, telling him, _I never would have let them talk to me like that. You have the power to do something about it, just do it. Show them the real power inside of you._ Benny knew he had to just let it pass like a brief storm. That’s what his father had suggested, who sometimes had his own voices to contend with. Accept that it is what it is, let it have its say, then let it pass, observe it like an outsider. It will pass.

Thing is, sometimes Benny didn’t want it to. Sometimes he understood why his father became Kylo, and sometimes, just sometimes, he wanted to be a Kylo of his own, become Sindel Ren, make these stupid kids scatter with just one look. That’s all it would take, one…simple…look.

But then he’d think of his father’s eyes, with soft kindness in them, understanding. And Benny would remember that Ben Solo was never happy as Kylo Ren. Ben Solo’s happiness came from being his own good, loving, true self. He couldn’t follow in his father’s old steps. That would be spitting in the face of the man who came back from the dead, saved the galaxy, and loved Benny enough to break apart time and space just to save him. His father meant so much to him, and Benny could never dishonor him by becoming the one thing that would break his dad’s heart.

Benny just wished all of them could understand how hard it was to face this every day, to be reminded every day of the worst moments of your life, and to have the power to make them all cower and not be allowed to use it.

“Kylo! Kylo!”

Again Ben tried to ignore them, tried to continue reading, even though he had read this passage five times already and still absorbed none of it.

“No seriously, Ben, check this out. Doesn’t your mom work in the ship depot?”

Well, at least they called him by his name. He turned. “Yeah, so?”

“It’s our Mechanics class project. A model of a Forster Class Propulsion Engine.”

Benny briefly smiled. “Nice.”

“You think it’s accurate? Figured maybe you know since your mom knows that stuff.”

Benny stood. Maybe these jerks were being sincere for once. No one ever asked his expertise on anything. And between his mom, Tarn, and Jorn, he was always learning something about starships. He stepped close and looked it over. “Pretty good model, I think maybe you could add a—”

Fire blasted out of the component right toward his face. It didn’t hurt, just a quick blast of heat, but that didn’t matter. There might have been laughter…somewhere…on the edge of the inferno—flames surrounding him, heat burning into his skin, his flesh bubbling and exploding off of his bones as magma ate him alive—

And Kylo standing above, staring with those black, cold eyes, proud of his accomplishment.

Benny summoned everything in him and screamed, blasting at Kylo, intent on ripping the meat from his very bones, disintegrating him on contact.

The massive boom as the back wall of the school burst into the outside yard snapped him out of the vision. Instead he saw concrete and debris and his schoolmates flying backwards. Terror seized him, and he stopped the flow of his power, holding the frightened teens up in the air, stricken eyes staring back at him, mouths wide open, silent in their utter fear.

He lowered his hands, setting them on the shattered ground. He released them and fell back a few steps, catching himself on a desk. The kids ran so damn fast out of there.

“Ben!” His language arts teacher gasped, hands over her mouth.

He looked at her, tears warping his vision. He really liked her, wanted her to like him. She had always championed him, been proud of his work. Now she saw him for who he really was.

A monster.

Benny stumbled out of the classroom, out through the blasted wall, while she called his name, begging him to come back. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t look at anyone, could barely look at himself. And when his mom found out? Dads?

For a moment he almost thought of running away, but where could he go? Chandrila didn’t look fondly on his lineage, and his parents would find him no matter where he went.

So he headed home, where at least someone understood him, maybe wouldn’t hate him. They didn’t have to. He was really, really good at hating himself right now.

#

Ben had ignored the calls from the school and brushed off a few demanding thoughts from Rey as he listened to Benny’s story.

The boy’s shoulders heaved up and down, tears rolling down his face. “I’m really turning into a monster. Just like everyone thought I would.”

Ben put his arm around Benny’s shoulders. “No, no Benny. You’re not a monster, and you never will be.”

“EVERYONE thinks it’s true!” He sniffled. “It’s all I’ll ever be, let’s face it.”

“No, Benny. You are _not_ a monster.” Ben kissed him on the head. “Not to me. Not to your family either. We all know you have a good heart. Leia thinks the world of you. None of us sees a monster here.”

“You guys HAVE to think that way now, after what I did?”

Ben took a breath. “No, we don’t. My family predicted I’d become a monster. And I did. Benny, I know a monster when I see one, and you’re not it.” He wrapped both arms around his son. “You’re just a very powerful but scared and confused kid who…” Ben swallowed. “…keeps getting hurt left and right. And none of that is your fault.”

Benny cried into Ben’s chest, thin body trembling. “What am I going to do? What’s going to happen to me?”

Ben kissed the boy’s dark hair. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise. I will fly you into space myself before I let anyone do a thing to you, okay?” Ben’s lips tightened. “Rotten fucking kids do this shit to my son, no, not a chance. You’re not paying for their bullshit. I won’t allow it.”

“I love you, Dad.” Then, “I’m so scared.”

Ben rocked him, holding on to him with no plans to ever let go. “I know you are, son. And I love you too, so much…you can’t begin to imagine.” He took a deep breath. “We’re going to get through this, somehow, okay? We’ll get through it.”

#

Ben stood open-mouthed next to Rey and Finn, all staring at the destroyed back wall of the classroom. By the grace of the stars, it faced the outside lawn, and no one was hurt when it happened. The instigators—heretofore known in Ben’s mind as the fucking little bastards—were more shaken than hurt. Benny must have had some kind of control even if he thought he was blasting Kylo, because he could have put those kids through that wall before he blasted it open. No, he must have known, somewhere deep inside, the part of the boy capable of even loving his enemies had to have stepped in.

The headmaster continued to go on and on about the damage, the cost, the emotional damage to the children, what could have happened, etc.

 _What could have happened? None of this_ had _to happen at all!_

Ben looked at her. “What the hell were those children doing bringing a fire blasting contraption into school?”

The headmaster balked. “That’s hardly the point!”

“The hell it is,” Rey said. “That’s a clear safety violation. They tried to set my son on fire!”

“We don’t know that for sure—”

Ben glared at her. “He _told_ me what happened. He had a terrible fear of fire. Somehow they found out and they blasted it in his face—where were any of you then? Huh?”

“You’re going to believe a child over an official investigation?”

“I know when my child is lying.”

“Every parent who comes in here says that, you are no exception.”

Rey turned to her. “Except we are.”

“Oh yes, the Force, the same thing that caused this giant mess in the first place.”

“No, your neglect in stopping these children from harassing my son is what caused this mess!”

The headmaster turned toward the exit. “If you are going to justify your child’s actions, then perhaps we need to turn this over to a criminal investigation instead of simply handing you the bill for repairs.”

Ben’s blood lit on fire. “My son is not a criminal!”

Finn put his hand on Ben’s arm. “Ben, cool it. This is bad enough as it is.”

Ben pointed a finger toward the doorway. “She’s doing this on purpose! She was assistant headmaster when I went to this school and she treated me just as bad as she treats him. Jealous because she can’t use the Force, lets everyone push us around until we snap and then—”

Rey touched his arm. “You haven’t done something like this before here, have you?”

Ben shook his head. “No, not…not like this. I…pinned a kid against the wall. He said I looked like a Tarmoth goat. Actually, it was the ceiling. I sort of let him drop…”

Finn faked a smile that hid his fury. “That’s…that’s great. Good to know you set the stage.”

Ben pointed. “She was waiting for this moment! You went to her, I did, Rey did, all of us told them Benny had been through some bad shit and the kids needed to lay off and they did NOTHING! It’s like she wanted this to happen, just to stick it in my face that our kind aren’t welcomed here.”

“Well we’re going to have to stay here a lot longer, because all the credits we saved to take off again will now have to pay for this disaster.”

Ben clenched his fists. “Fuck!”

Rey shook her head. “We have to do something about Benny. We have to get him some counseling, help him work through—”

“He’s not crazy!”

“I never said he was! But you and I both know what he went through, and he’s clearly not healed from it.”

“They shot fire in his face; that wasn’t his fault!”

“But don’t you remember what he said? What he told you? He wasn’t blasting those kids with his power, he was blasting Kylo! In his mind he was in that fire—” She sucked in a breath, tears forming at the rims of her eyes. “—after Kylo threw him in—he was trying to attack Kylo—Ben…his mind was somewhere else when he did this.”

“But he stopped himself. He stopped before anyone got hurt.”

“What happens when he can’t next time?”

Ben rubbed his hands over his face. “He’s a good kid.”

“Yes, he is. And he’s a hurt kid. And I don’t think any of us are equipped to help him with that part—”

“So make him someone else’s problem yet again? That’s your answer?!”

“Damnit Ben! This isn’t about you! This isn’t about anything you went through! He needs help and he is _not_ fine and he _is_ a good kid and that’s why this is all hurting him so much!”

Finn nodded. “I agree. He needs to see someone who can help him process what he went through. Someone trained who knows what they’re doing.”

Ben shrugged, shook his head. “Now you’re both losing faith in him?”

Rey used her hands to enunciate her words. “This—isn’t—about—you! This isn’t your past come to life. It’s Benny’s path and he needs to heal and to control his power. We will find someone to help heal his mind, and we all need to figure out how to get him to control his powers. Ben…you have got to stop thinking about everything you went through and start helping him manage himself. And if that means we get outside help, then we get it. That’s not a failure on us. Please tell me you see that.”

Ben shook his head again. “What good is all my experience and everything I went through if I can’t use it to help him?”

“You _can!_ And you will. _And_ we will get help where we don’t know what to do. I’ll…start looking for counselors.”

“And what’s he going to tell them? About how he was kidnapped by my corrupt-Force-generated alter ego and died and brought back to life in the body of his brother from another dimension?”

Rey put her hand to her head. “I’m…sure they’ve heard worse.”

“They will call him crazy, and he’s not.”

Rey threw her hands up. “I will find _someone_ , okay?”

Finn shrugged. “And I guess I’ll go drain our credit account to pay for this disaster—”

“I’d wait on that.”

Ben looked toward the doorway. There was a woman there he hadn’t seen before. “Why’s that?”

A little timid, she skirted into the room. “I’m Ben’s language arts teacher. This…well, _was_ my classroom. I was a little late getting to class, I had no idea…I’m very sorry for this.”

Ben shrugged. “Not as if you told those kids to treat my son like garbage. Or did you stand by and do nothing like the rest?”

“No! Absolutely not—Ben is a delight in this class. I never let those kids pick on him.”

Ben crossed his arms, intrigued. No one in this school ever called Benny a delight. “Then what happened? Why’d they pick this class to pull that prank?”

The teacher shook her head. “I had no idea they’d…We had an assignment, poetry, talking about something deeply personal and using metaphor to put it into words. Ben wrote this amazing piece, with these incredible images of being eaten alive by magma—”

Ben closed his eyes as the realization hit.

“—and surrounded by fire and how it made him afraid of fire. Powerful, powerful work. He has such a way with words, he’s my star student.”

Rey smiled. “That’s so wonderful to hear. It’s…rare to hear such good things from his other classes.”

“I think he really enjoys this class, enjoys being here. Maybe the other classes, not so much. Happens sometimes, the gifted kids, when they’re not being challenged or acknowledged for their abilities, they act out.”

Finn nodded. “That’s Benny in a nutshell.”

“I guess the kids heard he was afraid of fire and decided to pull that stupid prank. I don’t think any of us saw that coming, and I honestly thought it was just a metaphor, that was the point of the assignment, but…there was more to that, wasn’t there?”

Ben shrugged. “I never read his poem, did you two?” Finn and Rey shook their heads.

“He never showed it to you? It’s incredible, let me send it to you, he probably didn’t want you to see it, you know, teen boys and all, but it’s so strong, I think you should see the kind of work your child can do.”

Ben held out his comm as the teacher swiped a projection toward it from her own piece. He couldn’t read it now, there was too much chaos going on, but the fact that Benny was doing well in at least one class was a surprise and a delight.

“Thanks,” Finn said, “but why’d you tell us not to pay for this?”

The teacher stepped in close. “Get yourself a lawyer first. You said it yourself, they ignored your pleas. Don’t give in without a fight. I know Benny is Force sensitive, and the headmaster? She’s never liked them since she had a child nearly thirty years ago who—”

Ben raised his brow. “That would be me.”

The teacher nodded, understanding. “Definitely get yourself a lawyer.”

Rey patted her hand. “Thank you for the advice and speaking with us. We really should get going. We have a lot to do about this situation.”

“I understand, and listen, I know that legally he can’t come back, but he doesn’t deserve to be cut off either. I’ll be glad to tutor him, at your home even if that’s more comfortable for you, make sure he keeps expanding that incredible mind of his. Maybe he’ll do better that way, anyway. Not all kids are suited to the standard system.”

Rey smiled. “That’s a very generous offer. We’ll keep in touch and let you know.”

“Thank you, and again, I’m sorry if any action of mine led to this.”

“No,” Ben said, “it just let us know that…perhaps there’s a lot more going on with him than some of us are realizing…or accepting…”

#

“I’M NOT CRAZY!” Benny screamed.

“No one said you were,” Rey said, “but you’re hurting in ways we can’t help!”

“I DON’T NEED ANYONE’S HELP!”

“Yeah, you do,” Finn said. “It’s one thing to get mad during training, when we’re there to handle what you can throw out there, but Benny, you took down a school wall—”

“They tried to set me on fire! How come they don’t have to go to a head doctor and I do?!”

“This isn’t about them, it’s about you.”

Benny pointed his hand at Ben. “And you’re okay with this?”

Ben didn’t know how to answer. He wasn’t okay with it, wasn’t sure how he felt about any of it. But the kid’s attitude and powers were both getting out of hand. “I think…”

Incoming Rey transmission: _Don’t go soft on this, we need to be united in this decision and you know it._

Ben turned around and growled at the ceiling in frustration.

_Oh, real nice, that’s a good response._

_Rey, what do you want from me?_

_To see that this is the best thing for him!_

Ben turned back to his son. “I just want you to be happy, Benny. I feel like you haven’t been happy in a long time.”

“Well now that I don’t have to spend half the day with people who hate me, maybe I’ll be happy again.”

Ben turned to Rey. “He does have a point—”

She glared at him with wide, furious eyes. _BEN!_

If he kept this up, he would wind up bunking in Benny’s room. He ran his hands through his hair, pulling on the ends in frustration. “Benny, we can’t force you—”

“Good!”

Rey and Finn both shouted Ben’s name at the same time. He pointed his hand toward Benny. “What are you going to do? Make him go when he’s not ready to go? You’ll just waste everyone’s time. He won’t be open to it, he won’t listen, he won’t be ready for it.”

Finn said, “Well there are three of us making this decision, and your word doesn’t make it final.”

“Whoa, three of us?”

“Yeah, or did you forget I’m his father too?”

“No, _you_ forgot that he’s a young adult. There are four of us making this decision, not three. He gets to have a say in what happens to him.”

“There you go, being the friend and not the father again—”

“And there you go not understanding him again—”

Rey stuck her finger up. “You two are _not_ going to start!”

Ben sighed. “Rey, I refused to listen to Luke’s side of the story for how many years?” She said nothing. “You were there. You remember when I finally was in a place where I could listen to him, really listen. He tried to force it on me on Crait, but I wasn’t ready, and look how that turned out. But before the battle with Kylo? Yeah, I was pissed, but I was also desperate for anything that would help, and I listened.” Ben took a breath, shook his head. “Benny has to be ready for it, or it’s pointless.”

Benny stepped over and leaned his head against Ben’s chest in that special way of his. Ben put his arm around him, pressed his cheek against the boy’s head.

Finn folded his arms. “And what happens when next time it’s not just a wall, when someone really gets hurt?”

Benny scoffed. “ _When?_ So you’re expecting it. Just waiting for me to kill someone.”

“No, Benny, that’s not—”

“Is _this_ dad the only one who believes in me anymore?”

Ben sighed. “Benny, that’s not what they’re saying—”

“Well that’s what it sounds like—”

Finn threw his arms up. “You blew the wall off the school! You nearly killed those kids!”

“I stopped myself!”

“You didn’t even know what you were doing! You thought you were fighting Kylo—that’s not healthy or sane!”

“So you ARE calling me crazy!”

Rey thrust her hands out. “Everyone STOP IT! Benny, you are clearly still hurting over what happened with Kylo, and I get it, believe me, you earned the right to still be hurt by that, traumatized. No one at all blames you for that. You have every right in the galaxy to feel hurt and scared and shaken by it, okay?” She pointed to herself, tears in her eyes. “I do! Do you know how many nights I wake up terrified you’re gone? And I run to your room to make sure you’re still there?”

Benny shrugged.

“Well I do. And sometimes I come all the way in and touch your skin to make sure you’re still alive, after what I saw…” She inhaled, swallowed. “The difference is I’m an adult, and I’ve been training longer, and I have more control over my emotions and powers than you do, and that’s not to hurt you. You’re a kid, it’s okay to not have full control. But with the power you wield, it can be dangerous.” She looked up at Ben.

He heaved in a breath. “Sometimes…I wake up and feel your mom beside me, only I forget it’s her, and I prepare to defend myself, thinking it’s my uncle trying to…” He overly nodded his head. “And Rey has to snap me out of it, before I grab my lightsaber. One time I actually did, but she froze me until she could get me back to my senses.” He shrugged. “I can’t imagine being a kid with everything you went through and trying to control yourself all the time.”

Benny whispered, “Thank you.”

Ben put his hands on either side of Benny’s face. “But I want you to be open to this. You know maybe…maybe if I had someone to talk to, someone who was really trying to help me, not use me for my powers, maybe I would have been a different person. Maybe Kylo wouldn’t have had to exist at all. We’re doing this for you, but you have to be ready and willing for it, okay?” Benny nodded. “Just think on it some more. This is for you, not us, but you have to be willing to make those steps.”

“I’ll think about it,” Benny muttered.

Ben tousled his hair and kissed his head. “Good. That’s what I want to hear.”

Ben left the boy’s room with Finn staring holes in him. When the door shut and the three adults were already down the hallway, Finn said, “That was _not_ the gameplan. You basically shit on the gameplan!”

“I’m right and you know it.”

“No, I don’t, and we were supposed to go in there united in getting him help—”

“And we will! When he is ready for it.”

“What’s it going to take? For him to actually kill someone? Wind up in prison?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“And why not, genius?”

Ben spun around, finger out. “Because I won’t let it!”

“You had _one_ chance to do the right thing—”

“What the HELL do you know about the right thing? You are incapable of seeing through that kid’s eyes, and that’s why…”

Finn crossed his arms. “Why what? He likes you better than me?”

“I wasn’t going to say that—”

“You’re so full of shit, yes you were!”

Rey said, “Would you two stop?!”

“I was not! But I get him! Better than you do. You—you read a bunch of parenting books and think you know the right thing to do because it works for the typical kid, but he’s not typical—”

Finn countered, “And you think because he’s so much like you that you know better than I do when you didn’t exactly turn out stellar—”

“Oh fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

“STOP!” Rey growled, and both men knew better than to ignore it. “Both of you have valid points and you’re both acting like jackasses.” She took a breath, stilled herself. “Ben is right that Benny will just reject any help until he knows he needs it.”

Ben opened his mouth to speak, but Rey stuck a finger out and he wasn’t going to test those waters.

“And Finn is right in that Benny needs help before he does something worse. So we have to keep working at him, try to get him to realize that this is the best thing for him. We also have to keep an eye on him at all times, be ready for another massive loss of control—”

Ben scoffed. “He’s right, you have no faith in him—”

“Will you not get it through your head, he blasted open a school! This is not a temper tantrum or blowing off steam. This was a loss of reality that erupted in an explosion of Force that nearly killed other people’s children! No matter how shitty those kids were, they still belong to parents who should have not to erect a memorial for them. Damnit Ben, Benny is not YOU! And not every solution that worked for you will work for him, and not every solution we try is us trying to be your parents, and Benny isn’t going to wind up in a school where his uncle is going to try to kill him, so would you PLEASE stop turning everything we’re doing into reliving your past?!”

Ben rubbed his hands over his face and smoothed back his hair. “You…told me to treat him like I wish someone would have treated me. Why is that wrong now?”

Rey softened. “Because you’re both traumatized, by different things but still deeply hurt by things in your past. And I’m afraid it’s blinding you to reality.” She shrugged. “Maybe it wouldn’t be a terrible idea for us to see someone too, so Benny can see it’s not just him. That we all need a little help sometimes.”

Ben heaved out a breath. “Yeah, I don’t know, maybe. I’m going out for a run.”

“Ben,” Rey said.

Ben stopped halfway down the hall. “What?”

“Benny looks up to you like you wouldn’t believe. You’re his role model. Seriously consider taking this step for him.”

Ben didn’t look at her. “Yeah, I’ll go run and think about it.”

#

Ben’s run didn’t help him decide anything. He didn’t see why he had to dredge up old memories and give them to a stranger. With all the work he had done on himself, forgiving and learning to love even the parts of himself he hated, why was it necessary to go back to those places in his mind?

So he woke up a few times thinking there was a green lightsaber hanging over his head. So he had a few dreams where he couldn’t break through time and space to save Benny, that the child was just gone, lost forever, his first son, the boy born of his life’s essence…

Even a week after that run, he still couldn’t think about those dreams. Some things were better left buried where they belonged. Besides, Benny was doing so much better. Sure Ben had to keep on his ass to make sure he did his schoolwork modules, getting up just as early as he used to. But now without those damn kids in his face all the time, Benny seemed so much calmer.

Yet still alone. Of all the kids in the neighborhood, Benny still did not have one friend. Not one kid from the school came to visit him. Ben remembered what that felt like, too.

But Benny had him and Rey and Finn, Sona and Poe, Tarn and Jorn, and little Leia. He had all of them, and yet…seemed so damn alone sometimes, wandering the beach, looking at groups of kids playing but never walking over to them, nor did they come to him.

What good was giving him and Leia a sense of a normal childhood if it was turning out anything but? Maybe it really was time to just get off Chandrila already. And that all depended on what their lawyer could come up with. Hell, the same man got Ben probation after the inquest. Maybe there was hope in that situation yet.

Ben sat in his bedroom watching the rain pound the sand and surf, Leia at his feet using the Force to make her toys chase one another. He had missed his homeworld after being gone so long, but now space just pulled at him. Staying on Chandrila seemed to just be suffocating them all, in small ways, but enough that it was feeling palpable. But with Leia so tiny and funds tight…

_HELP!_

Ben felt Benny’s cry through the Force, so strong and desperate, he knew he had to act. He pulled a rare move and asked the housekeeping droid to keep an eye on Leia before sprinting to the attached garage they had turned into an indoor training room. By the looks of Finn and Rey barging through the door before he did, they got the message, too.

Ben just slipped into the room when Finn screamed, “Sona!”

Benny was standing over her, tears in his eyes. A splatter of blood hung on the wall but was no match for the pool forming under her head. Finn held her face in his hands, calling her name, his voice hitching as panic set in. Rey slid to her knees and slipped her hands under Sona’s head. Her eyes closed, the Force channeling through her, hopefully in time to save Sona’s life.

Ben turned to Benny. “What the hell happened?”

Benny shook his head, sobbing. “She fell.”

“What do you mean, she fell?”

“We were practicing—” He hitched in a breath. “—sparring, and…and…she fell back and hit her head.”

A sense flooded Ben that made him feel both sick and infuriated. Benny was lying.

Sona moaned and drew her hand to her head. Benny sucked in a breath. “Is she gonna be okay now?”

“The damage is healed,” Rey said, flat. “She’ll need to recover from the blood loss.”

Finn and Sona shared a few whispers while Benny paced the room, clutching onto his own arms.

Rey stood and grabbed Benny by the shoulders. “What happened, for real this time?”

Benny shrunk. “She…she fell.”

“ _Try_ again, I can sense you lying—”

“Stay out of my head!”

“I’m not in your head and I don’t have to be to know you’re lying!” Rey pointed to the bloodstain on the wall. “That’s higher than Sona’s height. She could not just fall up there.”

Benny looked from Rey to Ben to Finn to Sona, over and over. He said nothing, lips quivering.

“He didn’t mean to,” Sona said as Finn helped her stand. “In the heat of combat, the goal is to win.” She giggled and staggered on her feet. “Benny had a little trouble winning, then whoop!” She swung her arm in a vague replication of using the Force and teetered, falling into Finn’s arms. “I wish I had the power of the little prince.”

Finn looked down at her. “You need to be checked out at a hospital.”

“That is stupid—”

“You are not yourself!” Finn glared at Benny. “Apologize. Right NOW!”

Benny blinked. His eye twitched. “But I—”

“Enough,” Ben said, and the command in his voice must have been evident because Benny backed against the wall, shrinking under Ben’s gaze. “Just admit to what you’ve done and have the respect to apologize for it.”

Benny hung his head and muttered something unintelligible.

Finn leaned forward. “So she can HEAR you!”

Silence, then Benny sprung alive with fire in his eyes. “You care about her more than me now!”

Finn pointed his finger. “Benny, that is not at all true. You are still my son and I love you, but I do NOT love what you’ve been doing lately, and how you’ve been acting!”

Rey groaned in frustration. “Benny, stop it and just apologize already! Why is that so hard, you know you did it!”

Benny thrust his arms out, and Ben wished he could stop looking in the mirror. “I swear to the stars, you’re all against me! I am all alone! In a school full of people I’m alone, in a house full of people I’m alone—”

Ben dropped his jaw. “No you’re not! Not here, not us. We are always here for you, always on your side—”

“MY side? You guys have done nothing but point at me and stare at me and holding me back and saying you’re worried I’m going to do something—like—like you can’t even trust me, you—you don’t even, can’t even—the whole damn galaxy is against me—I can’t do anything right—I feel so alone, and scared, and I don’t know what’s happening to me, and…” He shoved his fingers into his heavy mop of midnight hair and shook with a pain Ben understood all too well.

Rey and Finn didn’t look like they were buying a cent of it. Rey grabbed Benny’s arm and stuck her finger in his face. “Stop it right now! You don’t get to pull out of your responsibility in this by having a fit—”

“FUCK OFF!” Benny screamed.

That was it. Ben stormed over, towered over the teen, and roared, “DON’T YOU DARE TALK TO YOUR MOTHER LIKE THAT!”

The kid deserved it, but Ben instantly regretted it when he saw the look in his son’s eyes. Pure terror—a gasping, wide-eyed terror that made the child’s skin pale. Ben put his hand up, opened his mouth to apologize—

The force of energy pouring out of his screaming son smashed him against the wall, Rey scattering into Finn and Sona. Ben gathered himself and caught the insane amount of energy, like a burst dam frothing with violence. Ben opened himself, gathering the flood of Force he needed to contain Benny’s incredible show of power.

“BENNY, NO!” Rey cried, but the boy’s face was not like any Ben had seen before. A malevolent fury resided in there, and with another scream, lightning blasted out of his hands. Ben grunted, struggling to contain the massive amount of energy pouring out of the kid. If Ben faltered in this shield for even a second, he was sure the house, possibly the entire block, would blast apart.

“Finn!” Rey said. “Get Leia and the others out of here, protect them!”

“On it!” Finn said and dragged Sona out who dazedly muttered about the powerful little prince.

She turned back to her son. “Benny! It’s Mom! Listen to me, please!”

Benny either didn’t hear her or chose not to. Instead, he roared from the depths of eternity and blasted another maelstrom of lightning. Ben buckled slightly at the knees trying to contain it. Shit this kid was strong!

Rey jogged up next to him. “Ben, look at him! By the stars!”

It was hard to do much besides contain what amounted to a massive blast torpedo, but when he finally looked close enough, his stomach dropped into his feet. Benny stood there, teeth bared, yellow-orange irises gleaming as not only lightning but the blackest void of deep space—that drained all light and life into its chasm—encircled the boy. It wasn’t like the corruption, this was something different, but dangerous, incredibly dangerous and malevolent, like life itself could rip right into its vortex.

Rey closed her eyes, and Ben could feel her reaching out to Benny. Then she shook her head, tears falling down her cheeks. “I can’t get through to him. He’s so locked down. Benny! PLEASE! Baby don’t do this!”

Ben couldn’t speak if he tried. _It’s me. Something about me triggered this. I have to reach him._

Rey nodded. “I’ll hold it back—”

_No! If I let go for even a second, he’ll destroy everything. No, just…hold on to me. I need the strength of our dyad. Just keep the flow of Force coming to me. I’m going to try something._

“Ben…you can’t keep taking this.”

_Not without your help I can’t._

Rey nodded and stood a little behind him. She slid her hands under his shirt and touched the skin of his sides to keep his arms free. The waft of energy suddenly pouring into him relieved the horrid burden of trying to contain that much power on his own. Good, he could work with this.

“Look at you, Benny,” Ben forced out, his throat strained. “Look at how much power you can wield. All that frustration, hurt, fear, anger—gives you so much power, doesn’t it?”

“This is nothing!” Benny growled. “I’ll show you how much power I have!” He tipped his head back, raised his hands as if drawing from the epitome of the universe, and thrust forth white and black lightning. The power scraped at Ben’s shield, and he fell to one knee trying to contain it, burning with the pain of it forcing its way through.

“BENNY PLEASE!” Rey screamed. “He’s your father! You’re killing him!”

“It’s okay,” Ben said, pushing back to his feet. “It’s okay, I got this.”

“Ben, no more! We have to get him under control!”

“He’ll get himself there. You’ll see. Benny! Damn, that was a good one. Holy shit that was a good one. Feels good to get all that off your chest, huh? In a safe place like this? Where you can be everything you are inside, feel everything you feel, and no one can stop you?”

Benny curled his fingers into fists. “Nothing CAN stop me now! This little bubble won’t keep me long.”

“I’ll bet. Well then, what else can you do? Huh? What else you got in there?”

“EVERYTHING!” Benny growled in such an unholy voice. “This time I’ll kill you! I’m not powerless anymore! You son of a bitch! I’M NOT POWERLESS!” Benny curled in on himself, then thrust his hands out. This time it really was like a bomb going off, fire blasting out of the center of his being.

Ben growled with the strain of keeping it contained and still felt like the fire was eating his soul. Then Benny’s furious, yellow-orange eyes looked about in a panic as flames swirled around him. He screamed, flailed, trying to bat it away, trapped in his own inferno.

“BENNY!” Rey shrieked. “We have to stop this! It’s his worst nightmare!”

“HELP ME!” Benny screamed. “LET ME OUT!”

“This is yours!” Ben shouted. “You created this! This isn’t happening to you, this is yours! What is yours, YOU control! Grab it, Benny! Bend it to your will! YOU make the fire do YOUR bidding! YOU are in control! You are NOT POWERLESS!”

Benny twisted in a panic, then put his hands out, tears streaming down his face. Heaving deep breaths, he cried out as he drew the power back into himself, the flames fizzling into little streams that sucked back into his hands.

Ben smiled. “Look at you, so strong. That’s my boy. You don’t have to be afraid anymore. You’re not powerless, and you _can_ control it.”

Benny hung there, a gasping, heaving mess, eyes full of distrust but a little clearer. Maybe he was finally snapping out of whatever spell held him.

Rey took a step forward. “Benny, it’s okay now—”

Benny thrust his hands up, guarded once again, static charges scattering over the shield Ben kept on him. “Nothing’s okay…I am everything you feared I’d be! I am the menace of the galaxy!”

“Benny—”

“THIS IS ME! THIS IS MY POWER! I am the MOTHERFUCKING DARKNESS COME ALIVE!” A grin shivered onto his face, then fell, then appeared, fell once again. The kid was a mess. He pointed a finger at Ben. “He made me…he brought this out in me…and this time I’m going to finish it! You won’t hurt me ever again!”

“He’s not out to hurt you, Benny!”

“Stop calling me that FUCKING name! I am, and always will be, SINDEL FUCKING REN!” He snapped his hands closed and screamed from the depths of hell, his power bursting from his center, cutting through Ben’s shield, tendrils of lightning and fire flailing through the light, trying to break free.

Ben roared with the effort it took to contain such a blast. He opened himself to oneness, drawing on the flood of Force through his connection with Rey, and still just barely kept that blast contained. Why did Benny hate him so damn much all of a sudden? All Ben did was yell, and the kid had deserved it!

Ben fell to his knees, heaving breaths, wondering exactly how much longer he could continue like this. He had only hoped to just create a place where Benny could just let himself feel his emotions without repercussion, set them free, let them have their say and relieve the kid of the pressure. But something else was going on, something far more dangerous to the kid and the rest of them. His son was becoming a everything they feared before Ben’s eyes, and he had to stop it. Only he knew he couldn’t. Only one person could stop this, and it was the terrified powerhouse in front of him.

Ben just had to reach him.

“That’s incredible, buddy.” Ben could barely speak, but he forced it out. “Look at how much you can do…with all that fear…and anger…and hate. Now show me what you really can do.”

Rey turned to him. “Are you out of your mind?!”

Ben stared at Benny with intensity. “Show me everything, not just this. This is only a small part of you. Just a part. Show me all of you. Show me all this _and_ your kindness, patience, intelligence, gentleness, love…”

Benny shook his head. “What?”

“Don’t you…think for a minute…that this power you showed me…is all you have!” Ben sucked in a few breaths. Damn this was draining the soul right out of him. “Show me…everything…that you are…”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Yeah you do. When you taught Leia to use her powers? When you stopped yourself before hurting those kids? When you—fix an engine part, or—or help a woman with her bags, or write your poetry, or figure out a puzzle. When you—protected the Thibans while we fought the Troopers that time? When you helped those—little _tonags_ when they washed up on shore? There’s so much to you, so much more than just this.” Ben nodded. “This is really powerful. This is incredible. Now reach inside and show me everything that you are.” He smiled. “It’s so much harder to do than this, but I know you have the power to do it. Show me your power, your _real_ power.” Ben swallowed. “All of it.”

 _Are you out of your fucking mind, you imbecile?_ Rey sent him.

_Yes, I am, but you’re going to have to just trust me. I feel something in him. I have to bring it out._

_Even if it kills you?_

_That’s what Nara’s for._

_By the fucking stars…_

Benny took one breath after the other. His eyes drifted down, to the side, then closed. He tilted his head back, feet lifting off the ground. The flames and lightning drew back into him, sucked into a tiny point in his chest. His hands closed while a pregnant silence filled the air.

Benny’s hands thrust out once more. A blast of light burst through him, searing into Ben’s shield, shoving him and Rey against the back wall. Benny became a blinding radiance, like the sun itself—he, one of the Twin Suns—its light burning through anything Ben could hold.

Ben slid down against the wall, giving everything he had to contain whatever this was, but he was no longer strong enough. He had to tell Benny to stop, but he couldn’t move.

“That’s it!” Rey said through her tears. “That’s my beautiful boy. Look at what you can do! Look at how incredible you are. Now show us…” She sucked in a tearful breath. “…show us how powerful you _really_ are. Show us how you can control this, draw it back in. Being this strong is power, yes, but being able to control it? That’s the mark of a true master.” She smiled even as she shook with sobs. “Show us the true power of Ben Skywalker Solo, show us the mark of a true master of the Force.”

Benny tipped his head back down, his eyes no longer yellow-orange. Instead they were their usual soft brown, now full of concern. He closed them once again, turned his palms toward the ground, and whipped the light back into himself. For a moment he stood there, assessing his surroundings, then fell to his hands and knees, shaking, spent, but quiet. His arms curled over his head, and he burst into tears.

Rey left Ben and ran over to him. Ben wanted to go, he really did, but he couldn’t move. The wall was his best friend right now because it was the only thing holding him up.

Benny wrapped his arms around his mother’s waist and cried into her chest, apologizing over and over. “I don’t know what happened to me…why did I do this? I’m so sorry Mommy. I’m so sorry…”

Ben had never heard his son call her Mommy. Damn he so badly wanted to go over there and hold the boy, tell him everything would be just fine. But Ben could barely hold his head up.

“It’s okay now, baby,” Rey said, rubbing his back. “It’s okay; we’re okay now. Sona’s going to be okay—”

“Sona…” Benny said, sobbing. “I never meant to hurt her. I didn’t want to hurt anyone!”

“I know…I know…But Benny, you can’t go attacking others when you don’t win, and you’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

Benny shook his head. “It wasn’t that I wanted to win. I just…I didn’t want to lose.”

“Benny, that’s the same—”

“No!” He sat up, mouth quivering. “I didn’t want to lose anymore. I kept losing in training, kept losing to those stupid kids at school. I lost to Kylo…over and over I lost to Kylo. And in the end he killed me.” Benny shook his head. “I don’t want to be powerless anymore.”

Ben felt like a shithead. That’s what this all boiled down to, exactly what Finn and Rey had been trying to tell him. Benny was still traumatized over Kylo, and until he got that resolved, he’d always be on edge.

And with the power that kid was wielding?

Rey brushed her hands over Benny’s forehead. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You’re still hurting over what happened. It never leaves, does it?”

Benny heaved with sobs again, crumpling into her arms. “I want to be free of this pain.”

Ben felt like a thousand knives gutted him at once. To hear those words, coming out of his son’s mouth… His boy needed help, and nothing else, not Ben’s own fears or ego, mattered.

This last bit just drained him. Ben slumped over, splattering unceremoniously onto the floor. They’d fix it all, after about two years of sleep, maybe.

“Dad!”

Ben felt arms around him, and he was pulled up into the thin grasp of his son. Tears poured from those brown eyes, his lips pursed and trembling.

Ben smiled. “Hey buddy.”

“I’m so sorry! I never meant to hurt you. I really didn’t. By the stars, I can’t believe I did this.”

“I’m okay.” No he wasn’t.

“Dad, just…why’d you have to yell at me?!”

 _THAT’S_ what brought this on? “Benny, you told your mother to fuck off. You have to admit you had that coming.”

“Yeah, okay, but just—let _her_ yell at me, okay? I can’t take it from you.”

Ben frowned. “What—”

“You scared me! You really scared me…”

“Yeah, I was mad—”

“But when _you’re_ mad…” Benny sniffled, looked up at the ceiling. “…I hate this, Dad, but when you get angry, I don’t see you anymore. I see Kylo.”

Ben’s heart dropped.

“And when you yelled at me like that…I saw him. I only saw him. Everything else stopped, and I was back there with him…only I wasn’t going to let him win this time. No, not this time. I was going to get him—and I was going to win—and he would never be able to hurt me again!” Benny sucked in his lips, face tight and on the verge of attack once again. Then he looked down at Ben lying in his lap and softened. “I guess I snapped. I’m so sorry, Dad. You’re…my biggest champion, and you get me, and you know me and know exactly what I need…” He sucked in a sob. “And you’re the last person I ever want to hurt…Just please don’t yell at me like that ever again. I was so scared…”

Ben swallowed, realizing how it all transpired. Despite having absolutely no energy, he forced his hand up and cupped Benny’s cheek. “I never want to scare you. Not like that. I don’t want you to ever think of me as someone who’s going to hurt you.” He tipped his eyebrows up. “But you have to expect that I’ll get angry sometimes, especially if you mouth off like that again, okay?”

Benny nodded, smiling through his tears.

“I’m going to get angry, and you have to let me feel that. But always know that you are my boy, I love you, and I won’t ever hurt you, no matter how angry I get. Okay?”

Benny nodded. “Okay.” He took a deep breath, swallowed. “And I don’t want to hurt you ever again either. Maybe…maybe I do need a little help to get past this, past Kylo.” He shrugged. “I know it…scares me to revisit it, but I can’t keep hurting everyone I love. That’s not the kind of person I want to be.” He smiled down at Ben. “You taught me better than that.”

Ben smiled. “You make me so proud to be your father.”

Benny laughed and sniffled.

“Benny?” Rey said. “Come over here.”

Benny looked back and forth. “I don’t know if Dad can sit up.”

Rey waved her hand and shoved Ben into the corner. “He’ll be fine, just come here.”

Ben lifted his brow. “Thanks, dear.”

“After what you just pulled here, you’re lucky that’s all you’re getting from me.”

Ben put his thumb up. Arguing was not an option.

Benny crawled back over to her. He bent low to the ground, brow furrowed. “What is that?”

“Can you touch it?”

Benny stuck his finger out and pressed it against a sparkling object. “Yeah, feels…familiar, like it’s kind of calling out to me.”

Ben couldn’t see. “Rey? What’s going on?”

She looked at him, awe in her eyes. “It’s a _kyber_ crystal.”

Ben’s jaw dropped. “What? Where’d it come from?”

She nodded toward Benny. “From him.”

Ben frowned. “How is that even possible? Has anyone ever generated a _kyber_ crystal before?”

“I…don’t know. But he did. It must have been after you told him to show the full strength of his power, and when he drew it back in…”

Benny’s eyes lit up. “Wait, a _kyber_ crystal? My own _kyber_ crystal?! That means…” He grinned.

Ben smiled. “The Force says you’re ready for the next step.” He shrugged. “Who am I to argue?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me if there's a sense of "that's not how any of this works" in regards to kyber crystals, let's just roll with it for the sake of fun!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What does true power look like in the hands of Benny Skywalker Solo?

“Dad? Daaaaad?”

Ben snorted awake and felt like he was made of bricks. He tried to pick his head up, but it wasn’t going anywhere. “Heh?”

“Mom told me to wake you up. You’ve been asleep almost sixteen hours!”

Ben groaned and rolled onto his back. “Fuuuuck.”

Benny hopped into the bed and lay on his back also, head next to Ben’s. Both lay in silence, staring at the ceiling, until Ben turned and kissed his son on the head. “How you doing, kid?”

“Okay, I guess. Calmer. Guess I let it all out, huh?”

Ben inhaled and let it out slowly. “Sure felt like it.”

Benny turned his big brown eyes up in Ben’s direction. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

Ben kissed his forehead. “Not your fault, kid. We’ll get it all figured out.”

“Why did you let me do all that?”

Ben sighed. “I guess I felt like you needed it, needed to get it all out but also see everything you are, everything you’re capable of. When you really know yourself, you can make better choices.”

“I don’t know if I ever want to use that dark power again, become like Sindel? That felt…”

“Entirely too good?”

Benny looked at him again. “How did you know?”

“Because I know.”

Benny shrunk, eyes back on the ceiling. “How do you stop yourself when it gets like that? When you just…feel so destructive and you’re enjoying it and don’t want it to stop?” He sucked in a breath. “I hate knowing I got that way. It’s not me.”

“It _is_ you, just a small part, just like I said when you were in the throes of it. That’s what I tell myself, what I told your mom when she slipped to the darkness while we were still trying to rescue you. This is us, but it’s just one small part of us. Remember everything that you are and choose what you want to be.”

Benny remained silent. Then, “I hope I can be as strong as you one day.”

Ben turned toward him. “Benny, you are so much stronger than I was at your age.”

Benny shrugged. “I guess being a Skywalker/Palpatine/Pace—”

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean, yeah, holy shit you are like, some massive level of Force power, but I mean your personality, your strengths, your convictions, everything that makes you the good kid you are. I wish I was half the good kid you are when I was your age. Shit, I wasn’t half as good when I was thirty.”

Benny chuckled. “Sona got back from the hospital. I apologized to her, felt really bad that I hurt her. I really didn’t mean to, it was like something else was in me when I did it.”

“Believe me, I get it. How’d she take it?”

Benny smiled. “You know Sona. She said, ‘That’s okay, my strong little prince. My platoon commander did worse to me and didn’t even apologize.’”

“Huh, so she’s had her head cracked open before? Explains a lot.”

Benny burst out laughing. “I didn’t want to say it, but I was totally thinking it.”

Ben laughed next to him. Then he calmed, still smiling. “You’re so much like me, Benny. It’s eerie sometimes.” Ben nodded. “But you’re better. You…I like to think you’re what I could have been…what I wish I had been.”

Benny propped himself on an elbow. “What matters is the choices you make now, right? That’s what you always told me. To do better. That’s what your dad said in spirit to you in your darkest hour.”

Ben felt so much pride and love he thought he’d burst. “Yeah, buddy.” Ben lifted his leaden arm and grasped his comm bracelet, reminded of something he hadn’t yet done. “Oh yeah, your language teacher said you had written a really good poem.”

Benny huffed. “It’s stupid.”

“She didn’t think it was stupid at all. I didn’t know you liked writing poetry.”

Benny shrugged. “Not something a warrior of the Force announces to the world.”

“Let’s take a look at it—”

“Nooooo…” Benny tried to snag the comm, but Ben rolled over and swiped the projection to the file before his son could grab it.

“I’m reading this whether you like it or not. Consider it payment for keeping you from blowing up the entire block.”

Benny growled and crossed his arms. “Garage is a wreck by the way.”

“Oh…well, it’ll give Tarn and Jorn something to do. Alright, let’s see what we got here—can I read it out loud?”

“No!”

“Perfect. Maybe I’ll read it extra loud so the whole house can hear—”

“DAD!”

“Kidding. Don’t have the energy for it, anyway. So it’s called…Reflected Eyes.”

Benny groaned and pulled the blanket over his head.

Ben cleared his throat. “Lost, alone, except with my worst nightmare.” Ben’s heart dropped. He took a breath and continued. “Eyes my own, reflected back to me. My father’s eyes, who had gone before mine had…opened.”

This was going to be harder than he thought.

“But this is not my father. An empty shadow come to life. He takes everything, I am an empty husk, bait, a lure to the heroes of the galaxy. Nothing more than bait.”

Ben glanced at the lump in the blanket next to him. Benny never talked about the time he spent with Kylo, or if he did, it was just facts. Never did he expound upon how he felt.

Ben continued. “Eyes my own, reflected back to me, he delivers pain and torment, no one will come for me, if they do, all worlds end. No hope for me.” Ben paused, heart aching for his boy. “Standing, drained, an empty husk, I will not be saved. I can only be bait. Flash and then I fall, flames scream into my eyes, fire wraps itself around me, consumes all. Pain is endless.”

Ben paused, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “Seeping into the magma, it is not over fast. I will never forget the pain. I will never forget the fire. Flames will always scream terror in my soul.”

Ben thought of the teens who blasted fire in his son’s face, thinking it was funny after hearing this. He was glad he didn’t know their faces because he wasn’t sure if he could control himself if he ever saw them in person. “Eyes open, I am a child again. Twin Suns, we share a body, quiet voice for my tormented soul.” He looked at the lump again. “Tossed a little Qui Gon in there, huh?”

The blankets shrugged. “Sometimes he was the only thing that kept me from going crazy after it first happened.”

Ben nodded and continued. “Eyes, my own, reflected back to me, this time he is love and hope. Arms wrap around me, heals all. Love is endless. He has returned from the dead…”

The tightness in his throat returned as he realized the poem was now talking about him. He sucked in a breath. “As have I. I am finally safe and loved…but mostly…understood…reflected in my father’s eyes…”

Ben turned off the projection, his heart aching and soaring at the same time. He never wanted a child of his to go through so much hurt, and he wished he could just hug Benny long enough to make the pain go away. How desperately he wished it were that easy.

He wasn’t able to protect Benny from Kylo back then, and Ben couldn’t save him from the lava that consumed him. Ben couldn’t have felt like more of a failure for all that, but that’s not what Benny saw in him. Instead of the failures, Benny saw all the good, the love, the understanding, everything Ben had been trying to give him in droves. It mattered. _Ben_ mattered.

He pressed his lips together as tears teased at his eyes. Damn he loved that kid.

“Hey.” Ben poked the blanket.

“Ungh,” Benny replied.

“You’re incredible.”

Benny rolled over under the blankets. “It wasn’t that good.”

“Yeah, it was. And…well it…it made me feel good, that you think of me like this.”

Benny shrugged.

Ben put his hand on the boy’s arm. “I really hope you’ll always see me when you look in my eyes, and not Kylo. I don’t ever want to be that person for you.”

Benny pulled the blanket off his head. “Do you think I’ll ever get over it? Get past it?”

Ben let his breath sift out long and slow. “I don’t know. But maybe we can find out together.”

Benny turned back to him. “What do you mean?”

“If you’re willing to see a counselor, I’ll go with you. I’ll see one, too. Maybe together, we’ll get ourselves figured out, find the answer to that question together.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“For both of us.” Ben looked at the ceiling. “Every day I manage it. Some days better than others. And some days my head is so noisy and clouded, heart reliving every painful thing I’ve ever done or was done to me. It’d be nice to feel quiet inside.”

“Yeah…” Benny looked up at him. “I love you, Dad. I’m glad you came back into my life.”

Ben, heart melting, brushed his hand over Benny’s dark waves. “And I’m glad to have come back to life to find you in it.”

#

“Solo family? The counselors are ready for you.”

Ben’s throat ran dry. It was a great idea, stacking three simultaneous appointments for Benny, Rey, and himself, so they could all go together, support one another, convince the other to walk through those doors, and sit down and talk about the worst parts of their lives.

Great idea.

He didn’t realize Benny and Rey were pulling at his hands until he lurched forward.

“Come on!” Benny said. “You’re supposed to be convincing _me_ to go!”

“Y-yeah,” Ben said, eyes widening, “you should totally go. It’ll be good for you.”

Rey stepped behind Ben and put her hands on his back. “Benny, you pull, I’ll push.”

Ben stumbled forward against his will. “I’m going!”

At the first door, Rey hugged Benny. “You’ll be so glad you did this. You’ll be just fine.”

Ben repeated the gesture. “And remember, if you feel your powers getting out of control, just try to send a signal out to me, I’ll be right there.”

“We both will.”

Benny nodded. “I’ll be okay. Promise.”

When the door closed behind him, Ben turned to Rey. “You need me to walk you to your door?”

“So you can slip out of this while no one’s there to watch you? Not a chance.” She grasped his arm, and he was pretty sure she had grown claws that were now digging into his bones.

He stood in front of the door to the office, trying to will himself to take that next step. When he hadn’t moved for a full minute, Rey looked up at him. “For Benny, remember?”

Ben forced out a breath. “Right. For Benny. For Leia. For everyone I love.”

“Including yourself.”

Ben nodded. This was the right thing to do. He kissed the side of her head and stepped into the room. The counselor looked kind, smiling, no judgment on her face. Maybe he could do this.

In the office Benny was in: “What if I told you I was kidnapped by a reincarnated evil version of my dad who tortured me and threw me into lava and I had to be reborn in my brother’s body?

In the office Rey was in: “What if I told you the love of my life died to save me and came back twelve years later after our son, born of the Force, was kidnapped by my love’s evil alter ego, and then I had to watch that son die after he was thrown in lava only to be reborn in the body of my beloved’s son from another woman?”

In Ben’s office: “What if I told you my parents emotionally abandoned me when they expected me to turn evil, my uncle tried to kill me until I dropped a temple on his head, I became an evil bastard who killed numerous people but then died saving the woman I love, just to be revived and brought back into this world, twelve years later, where I had to watch my kidnapped son be killed by my own evil alter ego that came to life when I was revived? But don’t worry, my son’s alive in the other room because my girlfriend in another dimension loaned us her son to hold his spirit until the healing ritual completed. Oh yeah, did you know the entire Force itself was fractured, and the universe was almost destroyed and rebuilt by some old evil bastard? Yeah, I took part in fixing that. So, where do you want to start?”

Ben’s counselor blinked.

#

Benny

Benny wrapped a towel around Leia as she toddled back onto shore. He was glad the weather was getting warmer. They replaced one of the training jogs with a swim in the sea. His father watched Leia so Benny could get his laps in, and now they had switched.

“You want some juice?” he asked his sister.

“Yeah!”

“What do we do when we want juice?”

Leia held out her hands. The spout on the large jug opened, and with the movement of her fingers, a cup floated close to the opening. Her eyes narrowed as she strained.

“It’s okay,” Benny said. “Liquid can be tricky. Don’t just connect your power with a piece of it, connect with _all_ the liquid in the jug. Then you bend it like clay. Try again.”

With a little grunt and tiny pursed lips, Leia moved her hands again. This time, a stream of red liquid rose out of the jug and methodically crawled into the cup. When it was half full, she let go, the arc of juice dropping and splashing between the jug and cup.

“Oops!”

Benny smiled. “That’s okay. That’s why it’s good to practice out here with juice instead of in the house. But look at what you _did_ do! You filled your cup!”

Leia clapped her hands and grabbed the cup.

Benny laid his towel on the sand and sat down, thirsty himself. Juice splashed into his cup without an ounce of effort. It was trivial at this point compared to what he could really do, but he preferred to keep practicing at all times, even the littlest of things. As he sat, he could see his father swimming against the light of the midmorning sun, long, strong arms ripping into the water. Benny stretched out one of his skinny arms and wondered if he’d ever be as big and strong as his father, either of them.

“Benny?”

He turned at his neighbor’s call. “Oh, hi Mrs. Dane.”

She stepped closer with her son, Tad, shuffling behind her. “Is your father around?”

Benny wondered if he had done something wrong. “He’s out there. Won’t be back in for another…twenty-eight laps.”

Mrs. Dane’s eyes widened. “No wonder he looks like he could crush a droid in an armlock.”

Benny laughed. “Yeah, that describes him alright.”

“Well, I suppose I have to ask your father for permission, but I was wondering Benny. Would you, I mean, could you…I hate even asking this of you.”

Benny’s anxiety ramped up. “What is it?”

“Well, I see you teaching your sister, with the Force and all? Do you…think you can teach Tad, too?”

“Uhhhh,” Benny scratched his head, looking for a delicate response. “See she’s Force sensitive, and he’d kind of have to be, too.”

“That’s just it. He is.”

Benny blinked in surprise. He stood. “Really? I, well, I never saw him do anything.”

Mrs. Dane pulled Tad out from behind her. “I know. I…I didn’t want him using it, after the incident at school.”

Tad was three years younger than Benny and whatever happened must have been before they arrived on Chandrila. Benny put his hand behind his head. “Yeah, I had a little trouble at school myself.”

Mrs. Dane smiled. “When I saw you home during school hours, I suspected what must have happened. Tad wasn’t allowed back either. It wasn’t really that bad. I mean, only part of the ceiling caved in, and no one was directly under it.”

Benny couldn’t hold in his snicker. Tad seemed like his kind of kid.

Mrs. Dane put her hand out. “Maybe that’s too much for you. He can get pretty strong. If you don’t think you can handle it, I’ll completely understand.”

If Tad was even remotely as strong as Benny, their house would have been obliterated by now. He wasn’t worried. “No, it’s fine. But I mean, wouldn’t you rather have my mom or dads teach him?”

“Oh, well, it’s just that I see you with your sister. You’re so patient and gentle with her. Your parents, they seem so…tough on you, on each other.” She leaned in, whispering. “And no offense, but your father out there kind of scares me a little. It’s the eyes, when he gets mad—”

“Believe me, I get it.” They shared a laugh.

“Tad doesn’t do too well with authority figures, hence the ceiling incident. It’s just been me and him for years after his father left, I’m not sure he ever really recovered…I think he’d do best with someone closer to his age.”

Benny saw his dad exiting the ocean on a wave. Ben slicked his wet mop of hair back and jogged toward them.

“My,” Mrs. Dane said, “all that working out _does_ pay off, huh?”

Benny lifted his brow and tried not to laugh.

“Hey Ina,” Ben said and squeezed out his long hair. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, I was just asking Benny if he’d be willing to teach Tad how to use the Force.”

“Oh, well, the thing is—”

“I know. He _is_ Force sensitive.”

Ben blinked. “Really? But I never—”

“She didn’t want him using the Force,” Benny said, “after an incident at school.”

Ben nodded, the answer not surprising at all. “Oh, okay.”

Mrs. Dane said, “We watch you all train out here every day. I never wanted to ask. I thought maybe he could just suppress it, just not use it, but it seems to get stronger all the time, and I get worried he won’t be able to control it after a while and might get hurt or hurt someone if he doesn’t know what to do with it.”

Ben nodded. “You’re right. The sooner he gets trained, the better. He’s welcome to join us at our training sessions any time.”

“As I was saying to Benny, I think he would learn best with someone his own age right now. Benny is so good with Leia, maybe he could take on another little student?”

Ben put a soggy hand on Benny’s shoulder. “What do you think, son?”

Benny’s heart warmed at his father’s trust in this task. “Yeah, sure, I’d love to. Um, Tad, why don’t you come sit here next to Leia, we can work on some things.”

Tad peeked out from behind his mother. “Yeah? Now? I…thought I’d have to…”

“Nah. Best way to start is to just start. Come on, sit. We’ll begin with some easy stuff.”

Tad dashed into the sand, eyes wide and eager. In all the times Benny had seen the kid, he had always just looked down and away from everything, as if he was barely interacting with his environment. Maybe it was a reaction from having to suppress that which came naturally to him all this time.

Benny put his hand toward Tad. “Can I reach in? Sense where you are?”

“Does it hurt?”

“Nah, probably won’t even feel it.”

“Okay.”

Benny felt along the Force and sensed the tight ball of energy inside the eleven-year-old. “You’ve been really locking yourself down, huh? Okay, so I’m going to release this a little. It won’t feel bad, but you’ll feel it open inside of you.” He touched along the Force, extending his energy into the stone wall inside the kid. With a light push and draw, the wall liquefied, energy spreading through the kid.

Tad gasped, his eyes lighting up. “What is that?”

“You. Free. Now let’s have some fun. Put out your hand.” He placed a seashell in Tad’s hand. Its lightness made it an easy first tool. “Feel this with your hand. Now remember, the Force flows through all things, you, me, the ground, the air, even this shell. Let’s try to lift the shell on the Force.”

The shell flung into the air. Ben caught it and let it float back down into the boy’s hand.

Tad shrunk. “Sorry.”

“No problem. Everyone makes that mistake the first time. You don’t want to push the shell, not yet, for now, you just want to feel your connection with it and mold the surrounding energies. Imagine like if you had an extra arm that comes out of this one, feel it as real as the one you have, that’s it, you sense that?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, now lift that imaginary hand, only it’s not imaginary. It’s as real as your own. Lift, nice and slow, lift…that’s it! You got it!”

“Mom!” Tad cried, shell floating with perfection above his hand. “Look what I can do!”

“That’s wonderful!” Mrs. Dane looked up at Ben. “Your Benny is so good at this.”

Ben nodded. “He’s had excellent teachers. And…he’s a good kid, tremendous in what he can do.”

Benny kept his warming pride to himself as he continued to help Tad.

Mrs. Dane looked his father up and down. “My, you _do_ exercise a lot, don’t you?”

“We train two times a day, sometimes three. Eventually we’ll have to return to space and continue our mission of liberation, need to be prepared for the battles ahead.”

The woman nodded. “Three times a day. I can tell.”

Ben cleared his throat. “Benny, you using that towel next to you?”

#

“You don’t put the inverter that way!” Rey said.

“You do too!” Ben said.

Benny watched his parents argue over the parts splayed over the table.

“Well maybe that’s why your red saber sparked all over the place.”

“That was because of the cracked _kyber_ crystal!”

“Well _maybe_ if you have put the inverter in the correct way—”

“There’s _nothing_ wrong with putting it in this way!”

Finn put his finger up. “Solution?”

“What?” the two barked.

“Let Benny feel it out. It’s his lightsaber.”

Rey and Ben crossed their arms and remained quiet, though Benny suspected they continued the argument along their bond. Finn leaned in, smile of rationality on his face. “Go ahead Benny, what does your lightsaber want?”

Benny closed his eyes and felt along the parts, along the nearly completed saber hilt. The inverter lifted, Benny not really paying attention to which direction it was supposed to go. He let the Force decide on its own. The piece slipped into the hilt and snapped into place.

“Ha!” Rey said.

Ben pursed his lips. “Fine. It’s fine.”

Benny snickered. “Nothing personal, Dad. It was the Force’s decision.”

Ben grunted. “Whatever. Alright, now that that’s in place, slip this module in here, and close the plate on top of that.”

Benny sealed the plate with a multi-driver and looked up at his parents. Rey said, “Now slip that entire module into the casing and seal these three spots on top.”

Benny grasped the casing and took a moment to admire its mirrored surface: alternating black and silver to remind himself that he is the darkness and light as one and two gold stripes on either side, a reminder of being one of Twin Suns. He slid the completed internal module inside, sealed the piece and held it in his hand. “Pretty heavy. Still feels a little big.”

Ben grasped his shoulders from behind. “You’ll be growing into it in no time.”

“Well?” Finn said. “You gonna fire it up?”

Benny grinned. “Can I?”

Rey smiled. “When the Force hands you a _kyber_ crystal, you light it up!”

Benny stood, gave himself some room, and slid his thumb over the wheel-switch he installed. Deep cobalt-blue hummed into existence. Benny’s heart filled with glee, and he gave a few practice swings, delighting in the whipping hum through the air.

Ben ignited his and put it side by side. “Darker than mine. Incredible color. I like it.”

Benny couldn’t take his eyes off it. “Almost purple, but not quite. Wonder if it means anything.”

“Well, it’s uniquely yours. _Kyber_ crystals, as far as I know, don’t usually get generated in the throes of power. Whatever it means, it’s meant for Ben Skywalker Solo, the finest Force-warrior in generations.”

Rey placed her hands on Benny’s shoulders. “Always use it wisely, my son. A sword that liberates instead of oppresses.”

Benny smiled. “I will. The three of you taught me well.”

#

“First, the stance.” Benny paced before the group of six children of varying ages, all with a practice cane saber in their belts. “Hands out. Center of gravity low. On my command, first strike is the draw. And—kya!”

Canes swished through the air in an upward arc. “Now downward diagonal thrust—kya!”

With his practice cane on his left hip, lightsaber on his right, Benny walked through the group correcting stances and motions. Over the past few months, word got out about a training center for the Force-sensitive, and Benny learned there were more kids on Chandrila with Force powers than simply him and Tad.

Between the counseling and starting this little training group, Benny felt better than he had in years. The counseling helped him sort out his feelings and develop strategies in case he slipped back into those hellish moments from the past. Thankfully he never snapped again, and when he felt episodes coming on, the tools helped him regulate himself back into the present reality.

The training group gave him purpose he never realized he needed or wanted. To see these kids—who felt alone and scared of their own abilities—grow and thrive and direct their power made him feel like he made a difference in the galaxy. Even if his family wouldn’t remain on Chandrila for too much longer, the fact that these kids had a base going forward made him feel good about the future of his kind.

Maybe one day his family would start an official school, a Gray Order, darkness and the light, and learning how and when to use both. Maybe they’d even have schools all over the galaxy, with people they’ve trained starting their own schools. Begin a new era for the Force-sensitive, creating warriors of the mystical Force that would stand up against any resurgence of empires or First Orders or anything of the like.

It was a dream of the past that fell to ruin at the hands of those in his lineage. But that was the legacy now in his hands and his family’s—to create something new and stronger out of the ashes of the past.

To imagine all that gave him pride and purpose, and all starting with a small group on a beach.

He felt something.

Benny looked over to see an older kid standing in the distance, staring at them. Looked more his age. “Continue the drills, I’ll be right back.”

The kid walked forward as Benny headed toward him. When Benny could finally see who it was, his stomach clenched.

The teen stopped, hand on his hip. “I’m probably the last person you want to see right now.”

Benny crossed his arms. “Can’t imagine why. Oh right, last time I saw you, you blasted fire in my face.”

“And you nearly put me through a wall.”

“I stopped myself before any of you got hurt.”

The teen nodded. “I know.”

Benny sighed. “Look, I’m in the middle of teaching a class, I don’t have time for your crap, so whatever it is you want, say it now and get it over with.”

“I—”

“And just a warning, Panner, I’m not putting up with your shit, and there’re no teachers here to save you, so watch what you say and how you say it. I’m not taking anyone’s shit ever again, got me?”

Panner nodded. “Look I just wanted to…I’m sorry.”

Benny squinted, still guarded. “Thank you.”

“I’m a shit for it, I know.”

“Yeah, you kinda are.”

“For more reasons than you know. See…I wanted you to use your powers.”

Benny flinched. “What?”

“I wanted to see it. The other guys were just screwing with you because they were afraid of you, afraid of your father, guess it made them feel better, like they were winning against your powerful family and everything your father did in the past, you know?”

Benny shrugged.

“I wasn’t really afraid of you, not like that. But I just wanted them to keep pushing. I wanted to see it. When you took down that wall…” Panner shook his head. “That was fucking great.”

“I felt like shit for that. Why would you say that?”

Panner pushed at the sand with his foot. “Because I can’t.”

“You wanted to see my Force powers because you can’t use them?”

Panner stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “I wanted to see them because I’m not _allowed_ to use them.”

That’s why Benny felt something through the Force. “You’re sensitive.”

“Yeah, and my parents beat it out of me from day one. ‘You want to be like that Kylo Ren? You know he’s from here.’ All kinds of shit. I was never, ever, ever supposed to use it. Pissed me off. Pissed me off real bad. Path to the darkside, right?”

Benny hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Not always.”

Panner chucked a rock into the waves. “So I fucked with you to see what I wasn’t allowed to be. Shitty, I know. Didn’t know any other way to deal with it. Then I heard about this school you were running, and I started thinking man, I was a real asshole. I should have been that guy’s friend and maybe he could have taught me something. Now? He’ll probably tell me to fuck off.”

Benny rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You terrorized me with all those assholes and now you want me to train you?”

Panner shrugged, kicked the sand. “I feel like a dick even asking you.”

Benny threw his hands into the air. “You guys made me miserable for how fucking long, got me kicked out of school, got me in trouble with my parents—who are expected to pay for all that—I got into it with my folks, and I’m supposed to help you why?”

Panner chucked another rock into the sea. “I get all that. That’s why it wasn’t easy to come here. I know I’m the asshole.” He shrugged again. “I just don’t have anyone else to turn to.” He dug his heel into the sand. “I’ll make it up to you somehow. I don’t know. Shit, just tell me to fuck off if you want. I get it, believe me.”

Benny wanted to haul Panner into the sky and toss him into the far reaches of the ocean. Another side of him saw another teen in pain and wanted to help him. Only every time he trusted these idiots for even a second, they turned on him. “Won’t your parents be pissed you’re learning this?”

Panner gave a mirthless chuckle. “Last time my father beat the shit out of me, just last month, he punched me in the stomach and knocked me to the ground. He kept kicking me, you know? My back, my ribs, one kick hit me right in the jaw, believe that shit?” He shook his head. “I fucking had enough. I just…” He smiled. “…imagined choking the shit out of him, just…choking the life out of him. And his eyes went big…and he just gagged, tongue out and everything…and my mother saw and she must have known what I was doing and she begged me to stop. You get that shit? She asked _me_ to stop. Not him! Not when he was beating me.” He shook his head. “She cared more about him than her own son. And the thing was…” His eyes grew distant, but he was still smiling. “…I didn’t want to stop. It felt good. I felt powerful. For the first time in my life I felt powerful.” He gave a huff of a laugh. “Guess I’m fulfilling what they always said I’d do. Guess I’m turning into Kylo Ren now, too, huh?”

Benny officially hated the feeling inside of him now—empathy.

Panner picked up another rock, tossed it in his hand. “I let him go. Can’t go around killing your father, right?” He laughed. “The fucking irony of it all, huh?”

Benny could say nothing. He was too busy trying to stay angry at the kid.

Panner threw the rock. “So now they avoid me. They do just enough to legally take care of me. I have food, shelter, clothing. The rest? I’m on my own. They don’t give a fuck. They’re waiting for the day I’m old enough to leave. And I will. And I won’t look back.” Panner looked at him and laughed. “Fuck am I doing telling you all of this? If you didn’t want me to fuck off before, you sure as hell do now.”

Benny knew what he had to do and needed all the strength to do it. He turned and headed back toward the training group.

Panner called after him. “I get it, man. Thanks for listening anyway.”

Benny turned back around. “You coming or what?”

Panner flinched.

Benny tossed him his training cane. “Get in line with the others. We’re doing drills now. Force work later.”

Panner looked over the cane. “You serious? You’re letting me in? After all that shit I did? After all that evil darkside shit I just told you?”

“The best place you can be right now is with people who understand you, who know what you’re going through, know what it feels like. Your dark power isn’t evil, but it has to be understood and used in the right way or else it becomes your master instead of you mastering it.” Benny unhooked and pointed the hilt of his lightsaber. “But just know I’m going to be kicking your ass left, right, and every which way.”

Panner smiled, and this time it wasn’t mirthless. “Yeah, I…well I expect that after what I did.” He jogged up to Benny. “Thanks for…not telling me to fuck off.”

Benny tossed his hilt and caught it. “I thought about it. But I can’t ignore someone in need, not when I’m able to help them. My family taught me better than that.”

“Wish my family taught me something useful.”

“Our past doesn’t make us. It can shape us, affect us, sometimes hold us back, but we have to decide who we’ll truly be in the end. That’s the greatest lesson my dad taught me. His past made him Kylo Ren, but his choices made him Ben Solo again.”

#

Ben

Ben watched as Benny led the training group. He couldn’t believe the change in that kid. It was as if he just needed somewhere to channel all that energy inside of him. The counseling helped, of course. Ben could see it sometimes, when Benny’s mind was slipping, but the teen would stop, look at things, count, settle himself back in. It was incredible to watch the boy come into his own power.

To see what Ben could have been if he’d had the same opportunities.

His own counselor was helping him accept the past and keep himself focused on the present. They were doing good work here, even if they wouldn’t be doing it long on Chandrila. But with the basics, these kids could go on and be strong in their use of the Force—and use it properly.

There was a new kid today, looked to be Benny’s age. Such chaos in the Force with this one. Ben reached out in oneness, just to make sure Benny wasn’t delving deeper than he could handle.

The sensations he received made his gut clench in ten different ways. Did Benny know this kid was one of his bullies? …Yes, he did, and let him in anyway…understood him…sensed the darkness in him and knew it needed to be channeled…kid’s been beaten and treated like shit…damn.

Ben had underestimated Benny. His son knew exactly who he was dealing with and had the deep compassion to accept him anyway. Just when Ben thought he couldn’t be more proud of the kid… He wished he could just grab him and hug him for being the incredibly awesome creation that he was, but the kid would scream and kick and punch if he tried. Too damn embarrassing.

Benny deserved a reward for all his hard work. Amusement pier? Maybe. Piloting? He was a little young, but they could take a fighter up at some point. No, something that would make him feel as proud as he made his father.

The sky grew dark as the Force studies finished. Ben sensed that the new kid was a little calmer now. Benny had reached in and straightened out his erratic Force energies, got him to concentrate. The kid’s face went from one of distance with a vague hint of distrust to engaged and connected.

Yes, Ben knew just the thing. “Alright kids, practice is almost over for today, but I think you all deserve a little treat for all the hard work you’ve all been doing. I’d like to especially recognize Benny who’s been a far better instructor than I was at his age.”

“Daaad,” Benny groaned.

“I mean it, Benny. Now I know the one thing you kids always want to see is our lightsaber practices, and I know we don’t generally allow it for various safety and other reasons, but I thought perhaps today we could give you a little demo.” Ben started walking a circle in the sand. “Let’s get you guys sitting way outside this circle, and I’m going to draw another inside for our engagement boundary.”

Benny plopped down between Tad and the new kid. “Who are you going to wail on this time? Finn or Mom?”

“Wrong, Mom wails on me.” That got a little giggle from the group. Ben stood in the middle of the center circle. “Actually, Benny, why don’t you come on inside with me.”

His son stared with an open mouth and wide eyes. “What?”

Ben waved him in. “You’ve been doing well in your drills, and it’s about time your students see their master wield the iconic weapon of the Force-warrior.”

Benny remained staring. “You’re serious?”

“I am.” He waved him in again. “Come on.”

The draped mouth converted to the widest smile, Benny’s brown eyes turning to thin crescents. He leapt to his feet, stepped into the inner circle, and grasped the hilt of his lightsaber. Ben stomped into his stance, blue igniting and casting bright light across the sand. Benny stomped in a similar manner, his deeper blue reflecting in the shadows of his face.

“Since this is just a demonstration,” Ben said, “and you’re still working on your skills with the lightsaber, the rules of engagement are defense only, remaining in circle, then you switch to offense at my command. Force can be used for defense only. Understood?”

Benny nodded, eyes intense and completely engaged.

Ben swung in high then left and right, Benny deflecting with perfect precision, his stances low and wide, movements fluid, in perfect formation and motion. The kids gaped and gasped in awe, cheering and occasionally rolling backwards when the warriors got a little too close. This was nothing like that time with the practice canes. Benny was completely focused and in tune with everything. Ben even felt him extending himself in oneness, their battle turning into a dance mimicking the precipice of life and death.

“Switch!” Ben said.

Benny charged in, vicious whipping strikes but calculated and targeted. If he was just showing off, it might have been sloppy. No, the audience disappeared, and Benny became everything he needed to be as a warrior of the Force. The next time they went out touring space, Benny would lend their team an incredible source of power in the fight to keep the First Order down and take down crime lords. And he was still just a kid.

What would he be like in his twenties, hitting his prime? The thought made Ben smile. Whatever fantasies he had as Kylo Ren about what mattered in the universe, it paled compared to watching the growth of the greatest warrior of the Force in generations coming into his own. That Ben had a hand in it made him feel all the sacrifice had been worthwhile to help shape the future of their kind and the fate of the galaxy.

#

_It has been determined that due to the failure of the school administration staff to address a detrimental situation regarding Ben Skywalker Solo after numerous notifications, Ben Organa Solo, Rey Skywalker Solo, and Finn Skywalker shall not be held financially responsible for the damage to Hanna City High School._

Ben hugged his most favorite attorney in the entire galaxy. “You are a lifesaver yet again, my friend.”

The big guy patted Ben’s shoulder. “I had to deliver it in person, see your faces.”

Rey clasped his hands. “We are so incredibly grateful for all your work. I don’t know how you keep getting us out of these jams, but we couldn’t be more thankful.”

“Well, unlike half my clients, you two actually listen to my instructions. This mean you’ll be off to space again now that you won’t have to wipe out your credit account?”

“Looks that way,” Ben said. “I know Benny’s doing well now that he’s teaching, but we have our mission to get back to.”

“Well keep my contact information. I may not have practicing rights in other worlds, but I know plenty who do.”

“We will, believe me.”

Once the attorney left, Ben put his arm around Rey. “I can’t believe he got us off yet again. Not all heroes wear lightsabers.”

“True.” She paused. “It’s going to be hard now, to leave. When Benny was having all those problems, it seemed like we couldn’t get out of here fast enough. Now he’s coming into his own, it will be hard to say goodbye to those kids.”

“No goodbyes. Just a ‘May the Force be with you.’ Because it will be, now that they know how to use it, thanks to him.”

“I like to think you played a small part.” She put her thumb and forefinger together. “Teensy, tiny part.”

Ben growled and gnawed on her head, receiving a poke in the ribs in retaliation. “We all played our parts, but it was mostly him.” He shook his head, smiling. “You ever sit there and really wonder what his future will be? He’s so incredibly powerful yet he’s so gentle and compassionate. You see the way he works with those kids, and him and that bully even became friends after Benny started teaching him. I feel like when I look at him, I see a resurgence of the old days of the Knights of the Force, only without all that restrictive Order bullshit getting in the way. Just warriors out there fighting the good fight with him standing at the lead.”

“That’s a beautiful vision. But I’m still trying to hold on to those chubby cheeks of yesteryear. He grew so fast…”

Ben nodded. “I wish I could have been there. I think the hardest part for me is knowing I never got to hold him as a baby, just, you know, hold him against my chest, treasure that little creation, like I did with Leia. It pains me to think we missed out on that bonding time.”

“Maybe not then, but you make up for it in droves now. Even if he won’t let you touch him in public, I see how he is with you. He’s always seeking out your hugs, putting his head against your chest. He loves you so much.”

Ben smiled, pile of emotions heavy in his chest. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I love him.”

#

Ben kept a cold, predatory, hunter’s glare on Panner’s parents, daring them to act out of line while the teen moved his belongings out of his apartment. They didn’t help him, nor did they try to stop him. They hung outside the complex, waiting to send him off.

Ben tried to keep the venom out of his voice. “You should be thankful we’re here for him. At least with us he can be his true self.”

Panner’s father barely looked at him. “We’re more than thankful you’re taking him off our hands.”

Ben shook his head as he looked up at the sky. “You know I don’t get you two. I felt abandoned by my parents and they didn’t do half the shit you did to this kid. You nearly drove him right to the dark side, you know that? The one thing you feared is exactly what you were creating.”

“Big talk from Kylo Ren. Why don’t you go back to blowing up planets, you murderer.”

Ben leaned in. “Only if you’re on them.”

Benny and Panner exited with a few bags on each arm. Ben glanced at them but still couldn’t take his eyes off the parents that beat their child for daring to be born Force sensitive. “That it, boys?”

“Yeah,” Panner said, “I didn’t have much.”

The three of them headed over to the transport. Finn reached out. “Hey Panner, why don’t you let me take those so you can say goodbye?”

Panner hesitated, then handed over the bags. Benny set his down and turned to his friend. “You want me to go with you?”

Panner shook his head. He turned and walked toward his parents. After only a few steps, they turned their backs to go inside. Panner stopped, standing there, looking as equally forlorn as having expected it.

Ben’s blood boiled. “HEY!” The man and woman froze. “Say goodbye to your son!”

After a moment, they continued walking inside. Ben clenched his fists. “You never deserved him, you fuckers!”

Ben felt a surge of dark Force flow into Panner. Ben’s eyes met Benny’s. He felt it, too. Ben spun Panner around and put an arm on the kid’s shoulder as they walked toward the transport. “I know it hurts, Panner. It’s okay to feel that pain, you’ve earned it. Your pain and power are safe with us, understand?” At the transport, he grasped the boy’s shoulders. “We can’t replace your parents, but we’re here for you in every way that you need.”

Benny added, “And we get it. Get you.”

The surge of darkness softened. Tears formed on the rims of the boy’s eyes.

Finn patted him on the back. “We’ll take care of you, son. From here on out, you’re one of us.”

#

Ben watched from the viewport of the Redemption as Chandrila grew smaller and smaller. As much as he felt the call back to space, it was harder to leave his homeworld than he thought it would be. He stepped off the bridge and over to the doorway of the lounge. Tarn and Jorn were already celebrating their departure with some colorful drinks. Sona played with a giggling Leia and told Finn they _must_ have a baby soon. Finn spit out his drink while Rey and Ina the neighbor made it all worse by suggesting all kinds of baby items, all the while watching Finn shrink deeper in his seat.

Over in the corner, Benny, Tad, and Panner laughed while fiddling with a puzzle. They traded a few arm punches, a cup popped off Tad’s head, and Benny laughed with every piece of himself. Ben couldn’t help but be reminded of the last time they left Chandrila, only this time it was Benny who was right at home.

Poe leaned back in his seat. “Where to, Captain? I feel the deep, impenetrable desire to kick some ass.”

“You and me both. Keep an ear out on the comm. I’d particularly like to find a planet overtaken with forces on the ground. Love to see what those kids can do with us out on the battlefield.”

“And thus the resurgence of the First Order was defeated by teens and a toddler.”

Ben laughed. “That oughtta hurt their morale.” He quieted. “But they should be afraid. Benny will take the lead one day. No one will be able to defeat him. He’ll be the stuff of legends.”

Poe tossed a snack in the air and caught it in his mouth. “Thank the fucking stars he’s a good kid. You three did right by him.”

“Yeah, but he does right by himself. And in the end, that will make all the difference.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed this little tidbit. I've been writing a few shorts (at the same time...) that give more insight into Ben and his family as time goes on. He's not an easy character to let go of, and I can't help but put him in all sorts of new situations. 
> 
> What I like about this story is not only the relationship between dad and son, but Ben basically looking at himself through the growth of his child who has opportunities Ben did not. In some ways, Ben lives vicariously through his son, and helping the boy through his hardest moments helps himself resolve his past. Also, I'm not entirely sure what therapy would look like on Chandrila, but I liked the idea of taking their wild but true stories into a situation where judgment was off the table. 
> 
> We also see the growth of Benny himself, who, despite everyone's concerns, is NOT his dad, even if they are incredibly similar. Benny goes from sullen and frustrated to finding his place in the scheme of things, where helping other kids like him means more than carved castles atop mountains. And the Redemption gets a few new crew members along for the ride!
> 
> My two favorite parts to write were the scene where Benny loses it and goes on the attack, Ben barely managing to contain the situation yet egging him on regardless, and the bed scene where Benny goes to wake his dad, they talk about the situation, and Ben reads and reacts to the poem. The attack scene was just plain fun to write, lots of passion and fury, exploring just how powerful a Skywalker/Palpatine/Pace could be if allowed to explore the depths of his power. It not only gives a hint of what he can do in the future, but provides a nice contrast to how he is toward the end. And the bed scene was just sweet, the bonding between the two was just so heartfelt to write, especially when Ben reacts to the poem while Benny is hiding under the blanket in embarrassment.
> 
> And finally, the lawyer scene is a nod to an attorney friend who was always frustrated when her clients didn't take her advice and made things worse. 
> 
> Subscribe to get informed of more entries! I like these shorts because, well, they're short LOL but they also keep Ben alive!


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